KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 8): The country is expected to need a year to achieve herd immunity for the coronavirus through the National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan, one of the largest vaccination programmes in Malaysia. Scientist Ts. Dr Ummirul Mukmimin Kahar from the Malaysian Genome Institute, National Institutes of Biotechnology Malaysia (NIBM) said that to achieve herd immunity, 80% of the population needs to be vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine.
KUALA LUMPUR – The country is expected to need a year to achieve herd immunity for the coronavirus through the National COVID-19 Immunisation Plan, one of the largest vaccination programmes in Malaysia.
Scientist Ts. Dr Ummirul Mukmimin Kahar from the Malaysian Genome Institute, National Institutes of Biotechnology Malaysia (NIBM) said that to achieve herd immunity, 80 per cent of the population needs to be vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
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Malaysia is expected to receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech by the end of February with frontline staff being among early recipients of the vaccine.
“After February, the COVID-19 National Immunisation programme will become one of the largest vaccination exercise in Malaysia. The administration of the vaccine will be implemented in three phases and will run until February 2022,” he told Bernama in a special interview via Zoom here, today.
BETWEEN Nov 30 and Dec 4, notable filings at Bursa Malaysia listed companies included that at
Bonia Corp Bhd, which saw Milingtonia Ltd ceasing to be a substantial shareholder after disposing of 16.18 million shares.
During the same week, Freeway Team Sdn Bhd, which is linked to Bonia’s founder and group executive chairman Chiang Sang Sem, acquired 400,000 shares. Post-acquisition, Chiang’s indirect stake in Bonia increased to 54.22%.
Bonia recently announced a 35.6% growth in net profit to RM5.36 million for the first quarter ended Sept 30, 2020, compared with the previous corresponding period. This was despite lower revenue of RM78.02 million against RM94.11 million a year ago.
Bhd are companies leading the charge in the race to supply the Covid-19 vaccine to 32.7 million Malaysians.
Both have fill and finish facilities that have been approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and are tipped to handle the supply of vaccines that the government purchases.
The priority list for the government is the frontliners and the elderly who are most at risk. That leaves quite a number of people who would want to be inoculated and likely to seek the vaccine from the private healthcare system.
Seizing the opportunity, there are also a host of companies wanting to bring in vaccines to cater to the private sector. From property developers to engineering companies, most are looking at registering the vaccine with the NPRA and distributing it to the private sector.