Public response to booster jabs still unsatisfactory, says health minister

The public’s response to the Covid-19 vaccine booster dose is still unsatisfactory, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa however said there had been an increase in the number of people receiving a booster dose following the campaigns implemented by the health ministry.

"For the first booster dose, the figure increased from 49.9% to over 50% now, while for the second booster shot, it increased from 1.9% to 2.2% a few weeks ago," she said during the question-and-answer session.

She was responding to a question from Rosol Wahid (PN-Hulu Terengganu), who wanted to know if the government was satisfied with the public’s response to the booster dose take-up.

Zaliha said the health ministry had taken steps to encourage more people to get a booster dose, including by allowing appointments through the MySejahtera application without specific times or locations and offering walk-in vaccinations for those in the high-risk group.

Meanwhile, she said the Covid-19 infection trend in the first month of 2023 was relatively stable, adding that the number of daily cases had remained around 500 last month and dropped to 226 yesterday.

"The seven-day average of new cases ranged from 187 to 511 cases throughout January 2023.

"The infectivity rate has remained below 1.0 since the 46th epidemiological week from Nov 13 to 19, 2022, and stood at 0.8 during ME 4/2023 from Jan 22 to 28, 2023," she said.