PUTRAJAYA: The government is working towards expanding the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) to include as many Malaysians as possible and immunising all eligible adults and teens by year-end.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said apart from vaccination for teenagers in Malaysia, the ministry is also evaluating data on vaccination for children under 12 years of age.
"Yesterday, I have stated that the health ministry is no longer using the term 'herd immunity' but is moving towards expanding vaccination access, which includes studying the data on vaccination for children under age 12.
"The concept of herd immunity is the control or elimination of an infectious disease when most of the population has gained immunity to the infection. Herd immunity creates protection to the community by reducing the overall infection rate or more severe infection.
"Herd immunity was determined based on the R-naught (R0) value of the infectious disease. Infectious diseases with high r0 values require a high percentage of population immunity to be controlled or eliminated.
"The original SARS-CoV-2 virus (Wuhan strain) has an R0 value between two and three. But with the spread of the Delta variant, the R0 value has increased to between six and ten.
"The Delta variant has also changed the level of effectiveness of the vaccine and against virus transmission. As such the health ministry will continue the Covid-19 vaccination programme so that all eligible population is vaccinated before the end of 2021," he said at a special press conference held at the ministry here today.
Khairy said based on information from the World Health Organisation (WHO), no country has achieved herd immunity.
In fact, the WHO states that the primary goal of Covid-19 vaccination was to reduce cases and deaths, while herd immunity was no longer a priority, he said.
"Therefore, we have changed the strategy to provide vaccines to as many Malaysians as possible as well as include new groups based on data such as children and also provide booster doses for certain groups.
"This strategy is very important for us to control the transmission of Covid-19, reduce the rate of ICU admissions as well as reduce the mortality rate so that we can safety enter the endemic phase."