KULAI: The Health Ministry expects to administer around 126,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine a day once the National Covid-19 Vaccination Plan rolls out this Feb 26.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the ministry will place seven vaccinators at each of the Covid-19 vaccination centres that have been identified nationwide.
"Each vaccinator will administer a maximum of 30 doses of Covid-19 vaccine a day.
"This means that each centre will be able to administer 210 doses of the vaccine every day. Multiply that with the 600 vaccination centres that we have identified nationwide," said Dr Adham.
He said the vaccination centres that have been identified include public and private hospitals as well as health clinics within the community.
"Each recipient will be required to fill in a document before they receive the vaccine. The document can be downloaded through the MySejahtera application. The document can also be sent to the recipient by healthcare personnel a week before they are to receive the vaccine.
"They patient would then hand over the document at the centre once they have made an appointment. This way, there will be no need to rush to the centre and thus, avoid congestions," he said.
He was speaking to the media after taking part in an integrated operation to check on workers' accommodations at two locations here.
Dr Adham also reiterated that the supply of the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will arrive on time.
"There are those who are concerned that the vaccines may be delayed because of supply issues in Europe but I want to assure that we have secured our supply.
"The vaccine will arrive in stages and the ministry will come up with the best schedule for their distribution nationwide," he said.
He also said that Phase 2 of the plan, for those in high-risk groups such as the elderly and those with comorbidity, will begin even before Phase 1 is completed.
"Phase 2 is supposed to start in April but we will begin earlier, even before Phase 1 is completed."
On the operation, Dr Adham said it was conducted after the district health office receive a tip-off regarding the accommodation conditions for workers at three factories here.
"A total of 568 workers were screened and 327 of them tested positive for Covid-19. The check showed that the accommodation standards were in violation of Act 446 (Workers' Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990) and Act 342 (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act)," said Dr Adham.
He said the authorities are also investigating whether the accommodations are owned by the factories or an agency.
"I would like to remind employers that they need to be responsible for providing safe and comfortable living accommodations for their workers.
"This is important to help us stop the spread of the virus."
Between September 20 last year and February 12 this year, a total of 852 clusters were recorded, of which 527 were workplace-related.
During the period, a total of 315,100 people in workplace clusters were screened and 78,906 tested positive.