KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 — The government is studying the possibility of legal action against those trying to dissuade Malaysians from taking part in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.

He told national news agency Bernama that such groups would frustrate the government’s aim of achieving herd immunity against Covid-19 through vaccinations.

"According to our plans, I hope we can expedite vaccinations, but what is important is that there should be no people who say no to being vaccinated.

"We don’t want half of us to be vaccinated while another section has not been vaccinated, because this will affect (the overall country),” he told Bernama.

The prime minister added that he has also directed the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) to prepare for contingencies in which the registration rate for the vaccination falls short of the 80 per cent needed for herd immunity.

According to the JKJAV, just 12.6 million Malaysians have registered for Covid-19 vaccines or around half the targeted 24 million needed to achieve herd immunity.

Registrations are notably low in states such as Sabah and Kelantan where just 19 per cent and 36 per cent of eligible recipients have registered, respectively.

Only Putrajaya has reached 100 per cent registration in the entire country.

Today, Muhyiddin also said he has asked the JKJAV to expedite Covid-19 vaccinations and to open up more vaccine administration centres (PPV) for this purpose.

There are currently 382 PPVs nationwide.

Separately on Twitter, NIP coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced that two more large-scale PPVs will open in Selangor on Monday to speed up vaccination in the state with the most cumulative and daily cases reported

The two will be at the Setia City Convention Centre and UiTM Puncak Alam, he said.

Malaysia has been struggling with the supply of some Covid-198 vaccines due to hoarding by the world’s richest nations, which were prioritised for shipments in return for their funding of the initial research.

With Covid-19 vaccines scheduled to arrive in larger numbers starting this month, however, Khairy has said he was targeting up to 150,000 vaccinations daily soon.

Vaccination against Covid-19 remains entirely voluntary in Malaysia.