KUALA LUMPUR (July 17): Malaysia's daily number of administered Covid-19 vaccine doses fell to 406,763 yesterday (July 16) from the record high of 460,158 on Thursday (July 15), according to the latest updates on Twitter today by the country's Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), citing data from the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF).
The CITF said that yesterday's 406,763 vaccine shots comprised 276,905 first doses and 129,858 second doses for recipients.
Among states and federal territories yesterday, Selangor reported the highest daily number of Covid-19 vaccine shots for the first dose at 85,865, followed by Kuala Lumpur's 52,512 jabs, according to the CITF.
For the second dose, Sarawak delivered the highest daily number of vaccine jabs at 46,266, followed by Selangor's 27,553 shots, the CITF said.
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Cumulatively, 13.62 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the nation so far, the CITF said, comprising 9.32 million first doses and 4.3 million second doses.
The CITF said 9.32 million first doses have been administered to 28.5% of Malaysia's total population while 4.3 million second doses have been given to 13.2% of the country's total population.
The Statistics Department's latest data showed that the country's population stands at about 33 million people.
Malaysia's daily figure of newly confirmed Covid-19 cases also fell yesterday from its record high a day earlier.
Yesterday (July 16), Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement that Malaysia's daily number of newly confirmed Covid-19 cases fell to 12,541 from the record high of 13,215 on Thursday (July 15).
Dr Noor Hisham said the country's daily number of pandemic-linked deaths, however, rose to 115 yesterday from 110 on Thursday.
It was reported that Malaysia's Covid-19 vaccination scheme started on Feb 24, 2021, with Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin taking the first jab.
Based on the Malaysian government's target of having 80% of the country's population to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to achieve herd immunity and the nation's population of about 33 million people, the country will need to have about 26 million people to be fully vaccinated against the pandemic.
News reports in June 2021, quoting National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin, said that according to Khairy's projection, the government was targeting to administer by December this year (2021) about 52 million vaccine doses to around 26 million people, accounting for some 80% of Malaysia's total population.
It was reported that the number of doses to be administered from June to August 2021 was expected to more than double from 5.8 million to 14.4 million amid expectations of faster vaccine deliveries from suppliers.