Malaysia's health experts and opposition politicians have called for a faster Covid-19 vaccine roll-out as cases surge, with questions raised over the supply of shots.
The country's vaccination programme kicked off on Feb 24 but the opposition has criticised it as proceeding at a glacial pace.
"To reduce the number of daily confirmed cases of Covid-19, the government must make sure the control and prevention programme of Covid-19 takes place effectively," said epidemiologist and biostatistician Kamarul Imran Musa, who is an associate professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia. This includes "maximising vaccine roll-out as soon as possible", he told The Straits Times.
Almost 10 million people in Malaysia have signed up for the Covid-19 vaccine, with just over one million or 10.6 per cent having received either one or both doses of a vaccine. This means only about 3 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated in 2½ months.
"There is still a long way to go to reach 80 per cent coverage, or herd immunity, for Covid-19," said Prof Kamarul. That is what Malaysia has targeted to achieve by December.
Opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran has spoken up about apparent delays in the distribution of the Sinovac vaccine.
Malaysian pharmaceutical company Pharmaniaga announced in January that it had signed an agreement with Sinovac Biotech to bottle and distribute 14 million doses of the Chinese company's Covid-19 vaccine. Malaysia received 200 litres of the vaccine on Feb 27, enough for 300,000 doses.
Another two shipments of 100,000 doses of Sinovac's vaccine arrived on March 15 and 22, and Coordinating Minister for Immunisation Khairy Jamaluddin received his first dose on March 18.
But Mr Rishyakaran said there had been no news of the first batch of 300,000 doses being used.
"If Pharmaniaga is unable to perform in the bottling and distribution of the final product, Khairy and the government need to address this massive shortcoming urgently," Mr Rishyakaran wrote on Facebook last month. "It seems very slow to get the bottling facilities up and running," he told The Straits Times.
DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng also raised concerns. "The vaccination rates continue to be... slow and the economic recovery is stalled. At its current pace, analysts estimate that it would take another three years to provide at least one dose to 80 per cent of the population," he said in a statement last Saturday.
Mr Khairy said the programme could be delayed because vaccines have been slow to arrive. He claimed that pharmaceutical companies were prioritising richer countries.
"People come to me all the time telling me they want the vaccines. It's not that they are sitting in a freezer here in KL but they have not arrived yet. They arrive on a very gradual basis," he was quoted as saying by the Malay Mail news website.
However, Health Minister Adham Baba said the roll-out is on track. "We will receive 3.52 million doses of vaccines from three suppliers this month alone and the amount will increase in the coming months. We are confident that we can actually carry out the vaccination programme faster," he said.
Malaysia is expected to receive vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac and AstraZeneca this month.
Dr Adham pointed out that the second phase of the programme, to inoculate senior citizens and people with chronic conditions and disabilities, which was supposed to begin this month, was brought forward to April 19 and will run until August.
But Mr Khairy said the third phase, targeting the general population, may be delayed beyond its scheduled kick-off this month.
Meanwhile, many Malaysians have registered for vaccination since February and have yet to get an appointment. So when the ministry offered 268,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to volunteers, they were snapped up within three hours on May 2.
The government offered the AstraZeneca shot separately after concerns in Europe that it could cause blood clots in rare instances.
Malaysians have flooded social media with posts about their attempts to get a dose.
"At one stage, I wasn't sure if I had succeeded," said housewife Shirley Liew, 58. "The entire process was like trying to buy tickets for a BTS concert," she said, in a reference to the popular South Korean boy band.
