KOTA BARU, May 25 — Unfamiliarity with the MySejahtera application has been cited as the reason senior citizens in Kelantan fail to show up for their appointments in the second phase of the state-level National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

State Health Director Datuk Dr Zaini Husin told reporters when met at his office today, a majority of senior citizens involved in giving feedback on the absence said they missed the appointment notifications as they did not know how to check for notifications via the application.

Dr Zaini said some did not have the MySejahtera application, whereas some cited late notifications, which they should have received 14 days or seven days before the appointment date.

"Besides that, many senior citizens are dependent on their children and when they receive delayed notifications, it is difficult for their children to arrange their leave to send their parents to vaccination centres on the date of the appointment,” he said adding there are those who have also forgotten about their appointments.

Dr Zaini said this when asked to comment on the report that nearly 10,000 individuals in Kelantan failed to show up for their Covid-19 vaccination appointments under the second phase of the vaccination exercise.

He said most of the absentees had to postpone taking the jabs due to health factors or unforeseen circumstances, adding some senior citizens were also not ready to take the injection due to the spread of fake news on social media of the alleged adverse effects of the vaccination.

"Inform in advance either through the MySejahtera hotline or the vaccine centre operations room so that we can slot in other individuals in the same category (senior citizens or high risk) to ensure there is no wastage of vaccine doses,” he said.

On the department’s measures to address the matter, Dr Zaini said he would hold discussions with the state government to set up more vaccination centres in certain areas as well as to intensify awareness programme about Covid-19 vaccine statewide.

When asked whether the daily Covid-19 cases in the state would reach four digits, Dr Zaini said he expected the number would increase between 450 and 600 within these two weeks if the people in Kelantan failed to adhere to the set standard operating procedures to curb the spread of the virus. — Bernama