KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) has been appointed as one of the designated industrial vaccination centres (PPVIN) under the Public-Private Partnership COVID-19 Industry Immunisation Programme (PIKAS).

The PIKAS initiative is aimed to facilitate the government's efforts to accelerate vaccination among the Malaysian workforce and reduce the number of COVID-19 clusters.

MITEC acting chief executive officer Mala Dorasamy said the PIKAS centre at MITEC is dedicated to companies from the manufacturing sectors under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

"The rollout of the industrial vaccination centre is crucial with the urgent need to accelerate the immunisation pace to combat COVID-19 in the country.

"This initiative will protect the well-being of employees and mobilise Malaysia's economic recovery," she said in a statement.

"In support of the PIKAS programme, BE practitioners, including the venue management team, as non-healthcare frontliners, will assist in the administration of the MITEC PIKAS PPV centre.

"This will further assist the professional team and ease the vaccination process for all recipients," said Mala.

PPV MITEC PIKAS project coordinator Dr Zool Raimy Abdul Ghaffar, who is from Mudah Healthcare Sdn Bhd, said there has been a positive response from companies supporting the PIKAS programme.

"We have close to 30 medical doctors, nurses and volunteers this week and looking at increasing the numbers to 60 team strength next week.

"We expect the vaccination capacity to be increased to more than 1,000 recipients from the second week onwards," he said.

Mudah Healthcare is the appointed healthcare organiser by ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ProtectHealth Malaysia established under the Health Ministry.

ProtectHealth has been appointed by Health Ministry as the implementer of private medical practitioner participation in the COVID-19 National Immunisation Programme.

-- BERNAMA