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. Advertisement 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.