Covid-19: We need to speed up vaccination in Selangor, says Dr Siti Mariah

KUALA LUMPUR (May 19): Selangor Public Health, Unity, Women and Family Development Committee chairman Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud (pictured) urged Putrajaya to give priority to Selangor in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic as the state is one of the key contributors to Malaysia’s economy.

“Selangor contributed over 20% on the country’s gross domestic products (GDP), we can’t afford to let the economy collapse due to the prolonged lockdown, hence we hope through the Selgate Covid-19 vaccination programme, we could speed up the vaccination process to protect the country’s economy,” she said during a live media briefing via social media today.

In 2019, a total of 72.3% of Malaysia’s total GDP was contributed by six main states. Selangor as a major contributor to Malaysia’s economy, had a share of 24.2%, followed by Kuala Lumpur (16.4%), Sarawak (9.6%), Johor (9.4%), Penang (6.7%) and Sabah (6%), according to data from Department of Statistic Malaysia.

Furthermore, she noted that if 80% of the Selangorians were inoculated, this would also help to curb the spread of coronavirus to other states as there are many Covid-19 clusters resulting from inter-state travel.

“It is crucial to speed up the inoculation process to increase the herd immunity to combat the pandemic. Looking at the current progress of the national vaccination programme, it will take very long for us to achieve the objective and our medical facilities are already at overcapacity and couldn’t hold any longer,” she added.

Siti added that talks between the Selangor state government and Federal authorities are now in the final stage and Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari will announce the details of Selgate early next week, including the price of the vaccines.

Under the Selgate Covid-19 Vaccination Programme which will be unveiled this month by Selangor state government, interested employers will need to register online through Selangkah Selangor app/kesihatan/ Vax Swasta

For now, there are more than 3,000 companies, with around one million employees, that have expressed their interest to participate in Selgate.

The Selgate programme will also include vulnerable groups in the state,  such as the elderly in old folks’ homes.

On the vaccine types, Siti reiterated Selgate will be taking one of the approved vaccines by the Malaysia government, which is Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.

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