KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 — Malaysia administered 507,750 doses of Covid-19 vaccines yesterday, putting the country on track to meet its target of vaccinating the entire adult population by October.

According to Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, 335,977 doses were given out to residents in the country receiving their first of two vaccinations.

Another 171,073 were administered to those receiving their second dose for full protection.

 

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Separately, the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) announced that over 16 million vaccinations have been administered in the country as of yesterday.

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These include 10.9 million used as the first of two doses and another 5.1 million for full vaccinations.

The numbers meant that 46.7 per cent of the country’s adult population have partial protection from receiving their first dose while 21.8 per cent of the group were now fully vaccinated.

Taking the country’s entire population including those not eligible to be vaccinated yet, this meant 15.6 per cent of Malaysia has been fully vaccinated.

This figure exceeds the benchmark set for Phase One of the National Recovery Plan to have 10 per cent of the country fully vaccinated.

Malaysia has been ramping up its vaccination rate sharply, with an eye on achieving around half a million daily vaccinations in order to meet the government’s accelerated target of immunising the country’s entire population against Covid-19 by October.

The government has focused on vaccinating the country in order to suppress the pandemic as the various lockdowns imposed since last year have become increasingly ineffective in breaking the chain of Covid-19 infections.

This is primarily due to the emergence of the highly contagious and airborne Delta variant of the disease, which Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said was able to cause an infection with just 15 seconds of exposure.

Yesterday, Dr Noor Hisham reported 13,034 new Covid-19 infections in the country along with 134 deaths.