Health D-G: Only 4 in 1 million may have Covid-19 vaccine side effects

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 — Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said only four in a million may get side effects after getting vaccinated for Covid-19.

He said the Ministry of Health is prepared to handle the if such a situation happens during and after giving vaccination to any individuals.

“Adverse side effects (after injection), in a million, there may be only three or four cases, but these cases are very isolated.

“However, we have a plan in place to monitor the side effects,” he said during a briefing session with local and international media today.

Dr Noor Hisham said individuals who will be receiving the Covid-19 vaccine will have to go through five stations at a Vaccine Dispensing Centre (PPV) which will take about 15 to 30 minutes including monitoring for side effects.

“They can also report any side effects that occur later through the MySejahtera apps,” he added.

His deputy Datuk Dr Chong Chee Kheong said: “We are prepared for severe reactions, no matter how small. Should be one in 100,000, but even if there is one case in 100,000, we have to be prepared for it.

“The evidence will be coming in slowly in the next few weeks, we will act accordingly after getting more guidance from the global health community,” he said.

In a related matter, Dr Noor Hisham said the government will use MySejahtera as the only approved app for vaccination registration.

He said that in response to reports claiming registration can also be done in other apps such as Selangkah from the Selangor state government.

“This is approved and authorised for vaccination registration. I do not want to nullify others but our official apps are MySejahtera by the government.

“This is why it is important for all of us to register under MySejahtera,” he said.

Earlier in the session, Health Ministry Disease Control Division senior principal assistant director Dr A. Maheshwara Rao provided a presentation on the MySejahtera’s role to register the public for vaccination.

Despite having four other methods of registration including via the vaksincovid.gov.my website and hotline from March 5 as well manual registration that would be introduced at government health clinics and hospitals, MySejahtera database will be used extensively.

“For other registration, the backend will be MySejahtera as well,” he said.

To date, more than 1.065 million people have registered for the vaccination process through the app.

On February 16, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin launched Malaysia’s vaccination programme, and announced that the country through JKJAV led by Minister of Science and Technology Khairy Jamaluddin has secured a total of 66.7 million vaccine doses, including 32 million from Pfizer and BioNTech — enough to cover 110 per cent of its population.

Malaysia has also reached supply agreements with Britain’s AstraZeneca, Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, and China’s Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics.

So far, only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in Malaysia. The rest are still awaiting regulatory approval.

The vaccination program’s first phase started this week which plans to cover half a million health and non-health frontliners as well as top leaders in the country.

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