MP SPEAKS | This is my reply to Ong Kian Ming, Member of Parliament for Bangi and Kelvin Yii Member of Parliament for Bandar Kuching on the 10 questions they posed.

I thank you for your questions and your efforts in increasing registration among people in your respective constituencies. I will take your questions in turn below.

1. What is the geographical distribution of those above 60 who have yet to register for the Covid-19 vaccine?

Currently, registration for those above 60 stands at 40.1percent. It ranges from 56.8 percent in Putrajaya, to 22.9 percent in Sabah. For States with low registration numbers such as Sabah, Kelantan (25.1 percent), Terengganu (29.4 percent), Kedah (30.9 percent) and Pahang (31.5 percent), we are working with the National Security Council (MKN), the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) and the state governments on an outreach programme to encourage people to register, particularly for senior citizens.

The outreach programme is not only to help them register for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (Pick) but also to convince them on why it is important for people their age to be vaccinated against Covid-19. We also assure them that the vaccines are safe, effective and if they have any religious concerns, we also reassure them that the vaccines are halal.

We are also working with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development to register and vaccinate residents and caregivers at elderly care homes. Mobile vaccination teams will be sent to the care homes to vaccinate on site.

2. What steps have been taken to work with state governments in order to increase the vaccine registration rate?

I have spoken to all the menteri besar and chief ministers virtually over the last month and a half. I have also physically visited and conducted direct engagement sessions in five states so far i.e. Negeri Sembilan (March 10), Perak (March 16), Selangor (March 25), Pulau Pinang (April 1) and Johor (April 4) and we will continue to hold such sessions over the coming months.

As mentioned in the meeting with the states, we are adopting a whole-of-society approach and Pick can only be successfully executed with support from the states.

In my meeting with the menteri besar of Selangor Amirudin Shari, for example, we discussed how the state government can complement the initiatives by Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) in community outreach, ensuring that all vaccination centres have enough volunteers and targeting key industrial clusters for vaccination drives.

Each state's CITF has also been in close communication with their respective state governments to ensure early planning for the effective implementation of mass vaccination which will start in June. State governments are also utilising all their agencies to boost registration. For instance, Jabatan Penerangan in all states are intensifying communications via billboards, social media and the Info-On-Wheels initiative.

3. Will the two-week notice for vaccine takers which was initially promised by the minister be followed? What other measures can be used to reach out to those who haven’t confirmed their appointments via their MySejahtera app?

We are aiming to give people who are eligible to be vaccinated a minimum of 14 days (two weeks) notice prior to their appointment. There might be instances of last-minute cancellations and we will reach out to other eligible candidates to fill in the slots. Alternatively, the vaccines will be redistributed.

The current notification system for all appointments regardless of registration method is via SMS, automated call and MySejahtera push (for those registered through the app). For all those who have not confirmed, the call centre will be following up with a call from a call agent (non-automated) to inform and confirm their appointment.

I have also asked the call centre to randomly sample and find out what some of the issues are in terms of confirming appointments. About 30 percent of people did not know that they received their appointments on the app. A further 15 percent did not know they need to confirm their appointment. We will put in place mechanisms to address these issues.

I would further add that 92 percent of those who have registered for vaccination did so via MySejahtera, thus I advise them to turn on their MySejahtera notification.

4. Has the list of vaccination centres been confirmed? Will they be published soon?

There are, at present, 1,424 vaccination centres identified across the country. 605 have been operating since Phase 1. These vaccination centres will open up gradually as we receive more vaccines and are able to scale up.

Furthermore, as we plan to inoculate more people in Phases 2 and 3, we will also be opening up mass vaccination centres at stadiums, convention centres and big halls.

We will publish vaccinations centres that are currently in operation on the  Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV). website.

5. Will there be translations for senior citizens who may not be very well-versed in Bahasa Malaysia? Will other assistance also be provided for those who are illiterate?

The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme handbook is available in four languages which are Bahasa Melayu, English, Mandarin and Tamil and they can be obtained online here. 

Our vaccination staff and volunteers are also ready to help those who need assistance in registering and processing their vaccination appointment. We will try to ensure that volunteers can converse in the languages and dialects of Malaysian communities.

6. Do we have sufficient manpower to increase the number of vaccinations per day four-fold from 40,000 per day to 160,000 per day?

At the moment, our biggest challenge is the supply of vaccines. We expect to receive more vaccines from June onwards. By then we will be mobilising more vaccinators from the Health Ministry (MOH) as well as the private sector and medical volunteers to ensure a smooth implementation of Phase 3.

As announced previously, the government has also agreed to utilise the services of general practitioners in the programme, and this will also contribute to speeding up the vaccination process and achieving our vaccination target of 160,000 doses per day in Phase 3.

7. Are there any contingency plans in place to have “volunteers” to be vaccinated in case those who are confirmed their registration do not show up?

We have put in place protocols to deal with cases of people not showing up after confirming their appointment. Vaccines are very precious, and we do not want to waste them. So, in such instances, we will be immunising people in the vicinity of the vaccination centres including volunteers. Each vaccination centre will be empowered with implementing the SOPs based on their respective localities.

8. How will the supply of Covid-19 be affected by continued uncertainties?

Malaysia has adopted a multi-pronged approach to the procurement of vaccines. We will procure more than enough vaccines to cover our target population of 80 percent to mitigate against manufacturing and regulatory risks.

We also made a conscious decision to widen our vaccine portfolio to reduce the risk of relying on one or two sources only. As I have said before, currently there is a shortage of supply of the Covid-19 vaccines worldwide. Many low and middle-income countries are affected by the hoarding of vaccines by rich countries who are now even considering providing booster shots for their citizens after a year.

This has posed a real challenge to Pick but thus far we have managed to keep to our timeline. We will continue to work as planned and if the vaccines that we have procured arrives as scheduled, we are more than ready to roll at full capacity to ensure we hit our 80 percent population target before the end of the year.

9. Can vaccination be made compulsory? Is this constitutional? What other methods can be used e.g. vaccine passport and allowance for activities?

Making it compulsory will be our last resort after we have exhausted all the other options. For now, we are going to keep it voluntary and intensify our communication to educate and engage the public by stressing the importance of getting vaccinated against Covid-19.

The National Security Council and MOH are currently looking at what fully vaccinated people may be allowed to do. This will also depend on real-world data from other countries.

10. How effective and efficient is the Covid-19 call centre? Does it require more resources in terms of more callers who can speak different languages to call up those whose appointments are upcoming? Can we utilise technology such as chatbots and artificial intelligence to respond to queries on Phase 2 and Phase 3 appointments?

Our call centre is well-manned and we have enough agents to cope with daily calls. We have agents who speak Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin, and Tamil.

Since we activated the call centre, we have dealt with 32,636 calls and managed to help 13,714 people to register for Pick.

We will be activating the chatbot on our website soon to provide real-time response to all queries related to PICK.

KHAIRY JAMALUDDIN is MP for Rembau and coordinating minister of the Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.