PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia is on track to achieving the target of having 80 per cent of the country's population vaccinated and subsequently creating herd immunity for the nation.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said he hoped the number of people interested to be inoculated would hit the five-million-people mark over the next two weeks.
"I think more people will come forward to register especially after March 12 when we roll out the update that would allow the people to register their dependents through the MySejahtera application," said Khairy, who is also the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP).
He was speaking at a joint virtual press conference on the implementation of the NIP that was conducted virtually with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.
Khairy also said the government at the federal and state levels would mobilise all of the machineries at their disposal to promote and get more people to register for the NIP.
"I will conduct engagement sessions with menteris besar and chief ministers every day to discuss the matter. This morning, I had conducted an engagement (virtually) with the menteris besar of Perak (Datuk Saarani Mohamad) and Johor (Datuk Hasni Mohammad).
"During the session, I sought the cooperation from them to mobilise all their machineries from top until the grassroots level to promote the NIP," he said.
Apart from mobilising machineries at the federal and state levels, Khairy said the government would also promote the NIP through billboards that would be erected nationwide.
Khairy, however, said there were those who preferred to observe the outcome of the programme, before reaching a decision on whether to get themselves inoculated or otherwise.
"This is a normal trend which is also taking place in other countries," he said.
He expressed hoped for such a mindset to change following the extensive promotion of the NIP involving community leaders, local authorities and influencers.
"For example, we notice an increase in the number of people registering for the vaccine after (Langkawi member of parliament and former prime minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad received his first dose of the vaccine yesterday.
"Maybe the increase was among senior citizens who are more confident getting vaccinated after they saw Tun (Dr Mahathir), a 96-year-old politician, receiving the shot of the vaccine," he said.
To date, Khairy said 3,832,976 people have registered for the NIP, of which, 3,658,538 of the registrations were made through the MySejahtera application.
A total of 173,575 people registered online for the NIP at vaksincovid.gov.my while 873 people did so through the NIP official hotline.