All cabinet members in Malaysia are being screened for COVID-19 after two ministers tested positive for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Minister for Woman, Family and Community Development Rina Harun tested positive on 11 January, just two days after Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, was confirmed as infected with the virus and admitted to the Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital in Kelantan.

On the same day, Malaysia signed a deal to buy an additional 12.2 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer. The deal brings the total volume of Pfizer vaccines procured by Malaysia to 25 million doses, enough to cover 39 percent of its population.

The Malaysian Government plans to inject about half a million people working on the frontlines in the fight with the first million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in February or March. These include about 300,000 medical workers and 200,000 police and military officers and social workers.

Mass vaccination is expected to begin in the country in the third quarter of the year.

Source: VNA