SHAH ALAM: With over 3.9 million people in the workforce and about 6.5 million overall population, the Selangor government is gearing up to vaccinate the Covid-19 risk groups in the state.
Selangor Health, Welfare, Women Empowerment and Family executive councillor Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud said the inoculation drive is expected to start in June.
She said the state government aimed to procure 2.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for some 1.5 million people, although it would consider getting more for the high-risk groups.
She said the vaccine procurement would be made through Selgate Corporation Sdn Bhd that would then sell to companies that had expressed interest to have their staff vaccinated, with no subsidies from the state government.
Dr Siti said among those in the list were government employees in the state like municipal councils and industries, among others, with 3,500 employers with an overall of one million workers having expressed interest to buy the Covid-19 vaccine.
"The applications were submitted via the state SELangkah app. We decided to require a deposit placed by the companies as a form of commitment.
"This is because, we have to work the number of recipients and ensure that the vaccines do not go to waste (should they decide to opt for free vaccine under the National Immunisation Programme)," she said in a state Covid-19 press conference today.
She, however, said the Covid-19 vaccines approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) would be given to petty traders and Small-Medium Enterprises' (SME) factories for free.
Dr Siti Mariah said the state government was in the final stages of the procurement and Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari would make a detailed announcement on it in a week or two.
Taking the federal agencies to task, she said the state had decided to procure its own vaccine in order to protect its huge population due to the slow distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine.
This is despite Selangor continuously registering an alarming number of Covid-19 cases, with 1,743 new infections recorded on Tuesday, the highest among the states.
Dr Mariah said Selangor was currently receiving 3.3 per cent of the vaccines from the federal government and hoped that the doses would be increased to up to 10 per cent, in line with the state's population ratio.
"We are not blaming anyone. Control measures, apart from the ongoing Movement Control Order (MCO) are needed to control the high number of infections in the state.
"Selangorians are getting fed-up of being blamed for the high number of infections. While we support all measures to curb the virus spread, people here have been questioning the slow progress when it comes to vaccination."
She said attention would also be given to senior citizens, with 300,000 people listed in the state's registry.
Selangor Covid-19 task force chairman Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said such move would help in "fencing" the population.
"Being the most populous state in Malaysia with high density, it is only right that Selangor is given attention in vaccine distribution."