Private hospitals already being used as vaccination centres - Khairy

KUALA LUMPUR: Private hospitals such as Pantai Hospitals are already being used as vaccination centres for private health care workers for phase one of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy, who is also the Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, said the government will include more private hospitals for phase two and three as announced previously.

"It will be all hands on deck. 75,000 to 150,000 (vaccinations) per day throughout is for later phases," he said in a Twitter posting today.

He was replying to former health minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad's tweet which stated that the government should engage the private sector in a "Public-Private Partnership" that is both effective and transparent for the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, if public hospitals capacity is insufficient.

Dzulkefly said it was to ensure the success of the the immunisation programme and achieve herd immunity earlier (80 per cent of the population inoculated).

Malaysia kicked off the first of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme's three phases on Feb 24, with the first roll-out to take place from February to April this year, involving 500,000 frontliners.

The second phase will be from April to August involving senior citizens aged 65 and above, high-risk groups as well as persons with disabilities (PwD), involving some 9.4 million people, while the third phase from May this year to February 2022 will cover both Malaysians and non-citizens aged 18 and above, targetting more than 13.7 million people.

-- BERNAMA