MOH to focus on endemic phase, teens to get vaccinated from next week - Khairy

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the KPIs, mostly revolved around efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic threat, are to ensure preparation and transition towards the targets were implemented in the best possible way.

"Our focus is to ensure that the people can understand well the new norms when entering the endemic phase. However, the MOH will never abandon other health matters (which are not related to COVID-19)," he said in a special interview on MOH's 100-day KPI target under his administration.

Khairy said among the KPIs to be focused on was the vaccination programme for teenagers aged 12 to 17 and the policy announcement for the third dose of COVID-19 vaccines (booster dose).

He hoped that as many teenagers as possible will complete the vaccination before the opening of the new school term next year.

"Within 100 days, we will start vaccinating teenagers aged 12 to 17 years. Our target (number of recipients) will be announced based on the supply of vaccines, but we will give vaccines to this group for sure.

"It would start next week in Sarawak because they have reached the threshold value of 80 per cent. My hope is that in 100 days, as many teenagers as possible will be able to receive their vaccines so that by the beginning of the school year, our teenagers will have completed their vaccination," he said.

He said within the same period, the target of 80 per cent of the adult population in Malaysia being fully vaccinated would be achieved.

Apart from vaccination, the MOH will also pay attention to the hospitalisation of COVID-19 patients.

He said within 100 days, the MOH was also determined to reduce the number of bed usage for COVID-19 patients involving non-intensive care unit (ICU) beds and ICU beds.

"We will ensure that the percentage of ICU bed usage for COVID-19 is less than 70 per cent while non-ICU beds for COVID-19 cases, less than 50 per cent," he said.

"We will ensure oxygen cylinders in health facilities are adequate by ensuring that each of these facilities has oxygen cylinders in excess of 85 per cent of the requirements," he said.

He also targets reducing the percentage of brought-in-dead (BID) cases from 21 per cent to 15 per cent, besides expanding the Virtual COVID Assessment Centre (VCAC) initiative in Kelantan, Melaka, Penang, Johor and Perak.

Regarding Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the endemic phase, Khairy said the MOH would work closely with the National Security Council, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia to produce a clearer SOP framework that is easily understood by the people.

"It will focus on compliance efforts and improving the people's understanding," he said.

Apart from that, he said the MOH would share data related to COVID-19 to the public in detail starting this Monday, in an effort to boost transparency and public trust.

Acknowledging that the existence of newer and fast-spreading COVID-19 variants is a challenge, Khairy said the MOH would increase genomic surveillance to ensure these variants are quickly detected in Malaysia.

Other targeted initiatives include releasing clinical trial data for Ivermectin in COVID-19 treatment.

The MOH will also approve more self-test kits as well as expand the types of premises allowed to sell the kits other than pharmacies and health facilities, by placing conditions related to the control of their sales, he said.

He added that the MOH also planned to provide free self-test kits and COVID-19 screening to the vulnerable and B40 groups in an effort to increase protection during the endemic phase.