IN its quest to ramp up its vaccination drive, the government wants 500 general practitioner (GP) clinics administering vaccines by June 15, said national Covid-19 immunisation programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

According to Khairy, 1,000 clinics will become vaccination centres by June 30.

“I target GPs and private hospitals averaging 40,000 doses a day before June 30,” he said today in a press conference at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Kuala Lumpur, which is currently used as a vaccination centre.

Khairy said GPs could not be pressed into service sooner because there were not enough vaccines to go around but from June supplies will increase.

“The government will pay the clinics and private hospitals. They only need to administer the vaccines,” he said, adding that the government was considering ramping its vaccination drive introducing drive-through centres.

“Following the successful drive-through pilot programme at USM Kubang Kerian in Kota Baru, other states cam implement it,” he said, adding that a nationwide rollout still needed some fine tuning.

On Thursday, Khairy said Malaysia would receive an additional delivery of vaccines from Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca in the coming months to speed up the national immunisation programme.

He said the additional supplies meant vaccination centres could administer 150,000 doses a day in June.

“On May 21, Health Minister Dr Adham Baba signed a deal for the delivery of 12.8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

“This means we have 44.8 million doses of Pfizer, which is enough to cover 70% of the population,” said Khairy. – May 30, 2021.