PUTRAJAYA MAR 8: The Ministry of Health (MOH) is waiting for the confirmation of the hajj and umrah quota involving Malaysian pilgrims and whether they are allowed to perform the haj at the holy cities this year.
Minister of Health, Datuk Seri Dr. Adham Baba said, MOH expects 30,000 to 50,000 Malaysian pilgrims will perform their hajj this year and the vaccination will be carried out at the vaccination centres operated by the ministry.
Dr. Adham was responding on a question about the requirement set by the Saudi Arabia government that only allows people who have been vaccinated to perform the hajj.
In another development, Dr. Adham said, Malaysia will receive the Sinovac vaccine (Coronavac) supply this month. The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) has given conditional approval for the use of the vaccine developed by China.
“The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin will be the first person to receive the Sinovac vaccine when it arrives in the country this month. The vaccine is safe and of quality,” said Dr. Adham at the weekly virtual press conference on the implementation of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) here today.
On the other hand, Khairy said the next shipment of 100,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine will arrive on 15th March while the next 100,000 doses from the same pharmaceutical company will arrive four days later.
“When it arrives in the country NPRA will take some time to release it after inspection,” said Khairy.
On the achievement of the NIP, Khairy said, he hopes the number of people registered for the COVID-19 will hit five million in the next two weeks.
“We expect more people will come forward to register after March 12 when we roll out the update that allows the people to register their dependents through MySejahtera application, said Khairy at a joint press conference with Dr. Adham today.
Khairy said, to date 3,832,976 people had registered for the NIP and out of which 3,658,538 registrations were made through MySejahtera application .
Meanwhile, 173,575 people had registered online for NIP at vaksincovid.gov.my while 873 people did through the NIP official hotline. –Malaysia World News
