By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, July 5: Malaysians furthering their studies abroad who have not yet reached the age of 18 on their Covid-19 vaccination appointment date may still receive the jab.
However, in order for them to be vaccinated, they must provide a consent form signed by their parents or guardians.
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti), Khairy Jamaluddin said Covid-19 vaccinations for students have already started after a special feature was introduced in the MySejahtera application to facilitate requests for early vaccination by these students.
“However, there is an issue whereby on the date of their vaccination appointment, they have yet to reach the age of 18. For this group of students, they are allowed to be vaccinated if they are going to turn 18 this year.
“Another pre-requisite condition for them to be vaccinated is that their parents or guardians must sign a consent form for the purpose,” he said at a virtual press conference via Zoom today.
To date, a total of 8,612 vaccination appointments have been issued for the early vaccination of these students.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the technical committee overseeing the vaccination of adolescents aged 12 and above, have decided to allow vaccinations to proceed for adolescents at a higher risk of serious Covid-19 due to chronic underlying medical conditions for now.
Following this, Dr Adham and Khairy who is the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (Pick) have agreed to the opening of schools for the purpose of vaccinating school teachers, support staff as well as the targeted adolescents.
Dr Adham also said adolescents who are at a lower risk of serious Covid-19 would also be offered vaccination but at a later stage which is after the completion of the third phase of Pick involving vaccination of adults aged 18 and above.
“The vaccination may be offered to them taking into consideration the result of ongoing clinical trials using a lower dosage of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in children and real world safety and efficacy data from countries using different time intervals between vaccine doses in young adults to see if this may be safer,” he explained. — DayakDaily
