By BERNAMA / Pic TMR

THE government has agreed to exempt the Covid-19 screening fees for students of local institutions of higher learning (IPTAs), said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.

He said the exemption will be given to Malaysian students who carried out the Covid-19 test at facilities managed by the Ministry of Health (MoH).

“In line with the government’s efforts to curb the spread of Covid- 19, all students must undergo a Covid-19 screening test before beginning their study sessions. Therefore, the government will bear all the test costs,” he said, adding that the cost was estimated to be RM2.79 million.

Speaking at a press conference after launching a book on Covid-19 published by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Press in a virtual event ysterday, Dr Adham said about 18,600 IPTA students were expected to begin physical classes in stages from March 1.

The book entitled “Impak Covid-19 Terhadap Insan” (Impact of Covid-19 on Humankind) was produced by a group of researchers from the Centre of Value Creation and Human Wellbeing at UKM’s Facult Economics and Management.

In another development, Dr Adham said 80,336 individuals had so far received the first dose of the Covid-19 Pfizer Inc-BioNTech SE vaccine, the majority of whom were frontliners listed under Phase 1 of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme which began on Feb 24.

According to Dr Adham, about 271 million people have received the Covid-19 vaccine worldwide, with the US recording the highest number of recipients at 80.5 million, followed by China (52.5 million), the European Union (35.6 million) and the UK (21.5 million).

He said Malaysia ranked 68th out of the total number of countries that have and are currently receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.

He also called on more people to register for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme via the MySejahtera application, which has so far recorded 2.7 million registrations.—Bernama