Malaysia will receive its second batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday (24 Feb), said Khairy Jamaluddin, Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme.
Khairy, who is also the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, said on Tuesday that the second batch — comprising 182,520 doses — will be distributed to states that have yet to receive the vaccine, namely Kedah, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Perak.
Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan will receive their supply on 25 Feb.
The second batch is scheduled to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) from Singapore tomorrow morning.
Malaysia received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on 21 Feb, which comprised 312,390 doses, through the national entry points at KLIA, Sepang, Johor and Penang.
On another note, Khairy said that the government is considering including a total of 55,539 teachers categorised as high risk in the first phase of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Program.
He said that the consideration was made after he received a list from the Ministry of Education.
“We will try to include teachers in the first phase of the Immunisation Program before the school opening date,” he said in a press conference.
The Ministry of Education has set to resume face-to-face school sessions for preschool, Year One and Two students starting 1 March while Year Three to Year Six students are allowed to attend school starting from 8 March.
For secondary schools, face-to-face learning sessions will begin on 4 April except for Form Five students who will start their schooling on 8 March.
The National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme will be implemented in three phases starting tomorrow, with Phase 1 from February to April 2021 involving 500,000 frontline workers.
Phase 2, from April to August, will involve senior citizens aged 65 and above, high-risk groups and the disabled. Approximately 9.4 million people fall under this phase.
Phase 3 from May this year to February 2022 will involve Malaysians and non-citizens aged 18 and above, targeting over 13.7 million people.
Previously, Khairy said that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah would be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine tomorrow, with the immunisation programme slated to begin two days ahead of the scheduled date.