REGISTRATION for the voluntary AstraZeneca vaccination was completely full some three hours after its opening today at noon.

Coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, Khairy Jamaluddin, in a tweet said all the slots for the vaccine, which will be administered at four vaccination centres, were full.

Reservations were accepted via the vaksincovid.gov.my website on a first-come, first-served basis, and 268,000 individuals in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, aged 18 years old and above, had signed up for it.

“All slots are fully booked. 

“My apologies for the initial glitch and multiple refreshes. You can still click on the grey boxes to put yourself on a waitlist for the next couple of hours. 

“We will start pushing appointments to your MySejahtera or SMS soon,” tweeted Khairy.

The first doses are to be administered beginning May 5.

Slots at the four designated centres to administer the shots were full by 3.15pm.

They are Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, World Trade Centre KL and Ideal Convention Centre Shah Alam.

During the first hour after the registration opened, Khairy tweeted saying that there was overwhelming traffic but slots were still available.

The minister had posted hourly updates on the slot availability on his twitter. 

Putrajaya turned to voluntary registration amid safety concerns after several cases of blood clotting emerged among those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe.

“Denmark, Norway and Hong Kong are the only countries to have officially halted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Other countries, particularly those in Europe, have resumed the use of the vaccine following their own assessments,” said Khairy previously.

He noted that only four cases out of one million people globally had reported blood clotting after receiving the jab.

Despite their apprehension, some Malaysians who registered for the AstraZeneca vaccine thanked the science, technology and innovation minister for giving the public the option to voluntarily register to receive it.

“Thank you. Me and my family all have already registered,” tweeted a user by the name of Afifi Hasan. 

Another user with the handle @Zulasyraf_ was also thankful as he was able to register for the vaccination despite the initial hiccup. 

“I’ve been waiting since 12 noon, but the slots were full from the first minute, later after refreshing there were slots but my convenient location cannot be selected. 

“But thank God, in the end got to register my wife and myself. 

“All in all, everything went well with the registration. Thank you YB,” he tweeted.

The first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccines arrived last week.

The Covid-19 immunisation programme has three phases, targeting 80% of the population or 26.5 million recipients who will be inoculated for free.

The first phase, from February 26 to April 30 targeted front-liners. The second phase, involving high-risk groups, started this month and is scheduled to run until August, while the third phase involving those aged 18 and above will begin next month until February 2022. – May 2, 2021.