Ministers have approved the injection of millions of non-Malaysians while fighting emergencies.
Malaysia says it will include all foreigners living in the country in its national vaccination program as they prepare for the first injection at the end of this month. .
“(The cabinet has decided that foreign citizens residing in Malaysia will receive free COVID-19 vaccines under the National Vaccination Program,” said Khairy Jamaluddin, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the East South Asia, which is leading a vaccination campaign Twitter Thursday “This will include diplomas, expatriates, students, foreign spouse and children, foreign workers & UNHCR [UN refugee agency] card holders. “
A statement from the country’s vaccine action group said that while Malaysians were a government priority it was important to ensure that non-citizens also received the vaccine to achieve sufficient coverage to prevent the spread of the virus. virus.
He also noted that the majority of records of the disease now occurred in workplaces including offices, construction sites and factories.
“A safe environment free of COVID-19 can only be achieved when as many Malaysian residents as possible are vaccinated,” the government committee on vaccine supply said in a statement.
“During a pandemic, the delivery of vaccines is a humanitarian movement.”
A baby is being tested for COVID-19 in Shah Alam, the capital of Selangor, the richest state in Malaysia. The state has emerged as the nation’s main coronavirus site [File: Fazry Ismail/EPA]
Millions of migrants, many of them undocumented, live in Malaysia and often work in the kind of low-wage jobs that many Malaysians do not want to do. Despite promises that migrants would not be at risk during last year’s lockout, thousands of foreigners were detained in an immigration raid and many said they were afraid to go out – even for trial – unknowingly that they would not be detained.
‘Part of the community’
Khairy said the cabinet had agreed “in principle” that the vaccine would also be given free to undocumented foreigners.
“We will talk more about how this can be achieved,” he said. “We will reach out to state governments, foreign embassies, NGOs to help.”
The committee noted that foreigners were “part of the community” and contributing to the country’s economy and that other governments were vaccinating Malaysians residing in their countries.
Malaysia is expected to receive the first shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in days and has also placed orders for vaccines including Russia’s Sputnik V, Sinovac and AstraZeneca, which will also receive under the COVAX WHO facility.
Healthcare workers are expected to receive the vaccine initially but the full timetable has not been released.
After successfully defeating the virus for most of last year, Malaysia has been battling coronavirus cases that began in September and were accelerated by state elections.
Partial lockout was introduced in October and went up gradually even as things went up. People were allowed to travel across the country for year-end holidays, before an increase in cases prompted another closure in early January that closed shops, restaurants and bars and banned travel.
Workers in hazmat suits will bury a COVID-19 victim at a cemetery outside Kuala Lumpur in January. The country has seen a jump in deaths from the disease this year [Fazry Ismail/EPA]
The government also imposed a state of emergency on the postponed parliament until August.
On Wednesday, the country reported more than 3,000 new cases of the disease and 14 deaths. In all, there have been more than 250,000 cases of the disease and 923 deaths.