By Ida Nadirah Ibrahim
SHAH ALAM, May 17 — The Federal government has been urged to ramp up Malaysia’s Covid-19 vaccination rate as well as mass testings in order to outpace the coronavirus transmission, mitigate mutation of variants as well as remain ahead of the pandemic.
The Pakatan Harapan (PH) Covid-19 Vaccination Committee said that the slow national vaccine rollout programme is “very disconcerting”, stating that only 3.6 per cent of the population is inoculated with one dose of the Covid-19 vaccines.
“This is nine times slower than our immediate neighbour Singapore at 32.5 per cent.
“It is nowhere close to the 75,000 daily doses claimed by the Vaccine Minister (on January 27) nor the 126,000 daily doses touted by the Health Minister (on February 13).
“We urge the government to prioritise these two major pillars of the Covid-19 pandemic management, namely the rapid response digitized and automated FTTIS (find, test, trace, isolate, and support) and the warp speed vaccine rollout for this period of the third MCO (movement control order),” said the committee in a statement today.
The group said that the country will experience “pendular swings of viral waves “ and would foresee the re-implementation of MCOs if the twin prong strategy is not optimised.
“This would be absolutely detrimental to our lives, livelihoods and the national economy,” it added.
The Opposition committee was set up in January and chaired by former health minister and Kuala Selangor MP Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.
Other PH members of the committee include former deputy health minister and Gopeng MP Dr Lee Boon Chye, Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii, Lumut MP Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli, Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin, Bangi MP Dr Ong Kian Ming, and the Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan state executive councillors for public health Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud, Dr Norlela Ariffin and Veerapan Supramaniam, respectively.
