Malaysia sees light at end of coronavirus tunnel as vaccine roll-out success lifts gloom

Covid-19 cases have fallen sharply since July and inoculations are climbing, fuelling hopes that the economy and borders can reopen by December

Health experts laud vaccine tsar Khairy Jamaluddin’s central role in the vaccine roll-out, but warn that authorities should not get complacent

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High school students and their parents wait in line to receive coronavirus vaccines at a school in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia has fully vaccinated 63.8 per cent of the population, and 88.4 per cent of adults. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:30pm, 7 Oct 2021Updated: 12:44pm, 7 Oct 2021

After 150 days in operation, one of Malaysia’s biggest Covid-19 vaccination centres shut its doors on Sunday, with over 1.2 million doses having been administered there.

At its peak, the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur – the country’s first mega Pusat Pemberian Vaksin (PPV or vaccination centre) was seeing some 18,000 doses administered daily.

Vaccine tsar and health minister Khairy Jamaluddin wrote on Twitter that the centre was the “biggest workhorse” in the country’s national vaccination programme.

The PPV’s closure is the latest indication of how far Malaysia’s vaccination programme has come, after teething problems earlier in the year that were compounded by supply constraints.

With over 2.2 million infections and nearly 27,000 deaths, Malaysia is among the worst-hit countries in Asia, on a per capita basis. But health experts say its vaccination programme is instructive of how countries can turn the situation around if they straighten out inoculations.

Eight months after the mass roll-out of vaccinations started, 64 per cent of the country’s total population of 32 million people have been fully vaccinated, while 73.8 per cent are partly vaccinated. Of adults, 88.8 per cent have had both doses.