JOHOR BARU, May 19 — The Johor state government should immediately obtain additional Covid-19 vaccines from the federal government to meet the urgent demand for 2.9 million doses in the state, said Johor Opposition leader Aminolhuda Hassan.
He said Johor can emulate the steps taken by the Sarawak and Selangor state governments which intend to procure the vaccines on their own instead of fully depending on the federal government.
“If there is a long wait for the vaccine from the federal government, Johor can take the initiative by purchasing the vaccine independently.
“The state government through Mentri Besar Datuk Hasni Mohammad can hold discussions with the federal government to procure the needed vaccines,” said Aminolhuda when contacted by reporters here today.
He was commenting on National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin who was yesterday reported as saying that state governments were allowed to secure their own Covid-19 vaccines so long as they were approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA).
In addition, there is also a nationwide delay in the initial June projection for mass vaccine supply.
Aminolhuda, who is also the Johor Pakatan Harapan (PH) chief, explained that previously the state only relied on the Health Ministry for the vaccine where the first phase saw 70,200 people receiving doses while the second phase reached out to 600,000 people.
“Johor can’t afford to wait too long if the state government wants to target 2.9 million vaccine recipients.
“This is important because Johor is the border gateway between Singapore and Malaysia,” he said, adding that Johor is considered far behind Sarawak in terms of independently procuring the Sinovac vaccine several days ago to help in speeding up the state’s immunisation programme.
Aminolhuda, a former senior executive councillor in the previous PH state administration, said that Hasni as the mentri besar has stayed silent on the state’s vaccination issues.
He said such a situation paints a picture that the state government lacks serious efforts in trying to achieve its vaccination target for the people.
“The Johor government should consider that by purchasing the vaccines independently to assist in reaching the state’s target at a quicker rate will somehow enable the border between Malaysia and Singapore to be reopened soon.
“The state government should not let the people be burdened with such a situation,” said Aminolhuda.
On a related matter, the Parit Yaani assemblyman also suggested that the state government be prepared to provide free Covid-19 testing services through the Antigen Rapid Test Kit (RTK-Ag) method to residents in urban and suburban areas.
He said this is because the two groups are often exposed in their daily meetings in public places as well as at work.
Yesterday, Khairy said the federal government allowed state governments to purchase their own supply of Covid-19 vaccines as long as these have been approved for use by the NPRA.
However, he suggested that this condition meant the states were not likely to obtain the vaccines ahead of the federal government due to existing agreements with the vaccine manufacturers.
At present, the Selangor state government has announced that employers who wish to procure vaccines for their staff can now register their interest through the SELangkah application. However, the state government has yet to clarify the process by which this vaccine will be administered, nor the source of the vaccines.
The Sarawak government had announced last Sunday that it would receive within a week 500,000 doses of Sinovac’s vaccine that it had procured, while an additional 500,000 doses would be delivered after that.
Currently, the NPRA has only approved the Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines.
