KUALA LUMPUR: The Selangor government's Selangkah team has admitted to registering people for AstraZeneca jabs without their consent, the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) said today.
This is following a revelation by CITF which stated Selangkah as among the third parties that had made mass bookings for the AstraZeneca vaccine without the consent or knowledge of the recipients.
In a statement today, the CITF said these bookings, including the ones made via the Selangor government's Selangkah app, came into the open after complaints from members of the public who had not opted in for the vaccine.
"After checks and initial investigations, we have found that several AstraZeneca vaccine slots were booked on behalf of the recipients in large quantities, without first obtaining approval from these individuals for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"CITF has found that these block bookings were made through several of the same IP addresses," it said.
CITF added that they had contacted these third parties, including Selangkah, where reservations for the AstraZeneca vaccines had been made through its ImuniSEL database without the recipients' consent.
These reservations would have also replaced any of their original appointments.
"Selangkah has given their assurance to work together with CITF and resolve this issue and ensure that affected individuals would be reverted to their original appointments," said CITF.
On Thursday, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government was looking into the possibility that mass registrations were carried out by certain organisations during the booking for the voluntary AstraZeneca vaccination programme on May 26.
"This should not have taken place, technically it cannot take place. There is only one hypotheses right now (on why it happened) and it involves not getting the consent of the people," he said.