ALOR SETAR: Over 10,000 individuals who were already given appointments to get their Covid-19 vaccine shots through the MySejahtera application in Kedah failed to turn up.
10,827 people had failed to show up for appointment dates between April 19 and last Saturday.
Kedah health director Dr Mohd Fikri Ujang said these individuals were scheduled to receive their vaccine shots at public vaccination centres (PPV) as well as PPVs at health clinics statewide.
Among the reasons given for the no-shows were that they changed their minds and they were not yet ready to receive the vaccine.
"There were those who informed that they were not well and were undergoing quarantine apart from being away from their areas," he said, adding that other reasons were lack of transportation as well as requests to change their appointment dates at the last minute.
However, Dr Mohd Fikri said all the vaccine doses were given to other individuals in a standby list.
"The list is made up of those who fulfilled the criteria to receive the vaccine in the second phase," he said when contacted today.
Meanwhile, Dr Mohd Fikri expressed hope that the public would take proactive measures in curbing the spread of Covid-19 by opting for self-lockdown.
"This is because daily cases are on the rise of late to a point it hit over 7,000 nationwide yesterday, with Kedah registering over 300 in daily cases," he said.
Apart from that, Dr Mohd Fikri informed that Kedah now has 14 private clinics and two private hospitals serving as PPVs. The private hospitals are the Putra Medical Centre in Alor Setar and the Pantai Hospital in Sungai Petani.
He said PPVs at private healthcare facilities will be increased to ensure a smoother rollout of the vaccination programme.
It was previously reported that as of April 8, 452,808 individuals from over 1.5 million eligible for the vaccine had registered to be inoculated against Covid-19 in Kedah.