KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 — The Malaysian Pharmacists Society (MPS) hopes the government will include pharmacists in the private sector when it rolls out the first phase of the Covid-19 immunisation next month.

Its president Amrahi Buang also urged the authorities to allow community pharmacists administer Covid-19 vaccines to the public, saying this will help speed up the herd immunisation process.

"With roughly 5,000 community pharmacists serving the nation as front liners in disease

prevention, MPS would like to urge the authorities to seriously consider administering the Covid-19 vaccine to all community pharmacists,” he said in a statement.

Amrahi said enabling community pharmacists to become "immunisers” is the best path to achieving high vaccination coverage and collective immunity as quickly as possible.

Malaysia is set to achieve its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical company Pfizer next month, with a total of one million doses by March.

Pfizer’s vaccine was conditionally approved for use in Malaysia by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency last Friday.

The company has promised to provide Malaysia with 12.8 million doses of the vaccines by the end of this year, which is said to be able to cover 50 per cent of the country’s population.