China's Covid-19 inoculation campaign is in full swing as health officials pursue their target of fully immunizing 40% of the country's almost 1.4 billion people by end of this month.
According to the New York Times vaccine monitoring, China has given more than 945 million vaccine doses, more than one third of the world's total. China is on course to exceed 1 billion shots in the coming days.
In Malaysia, the government has started deploying mobile immunization centers to rural areas to ensure millions of the population get access to Covid-19 vaccine as the country enters a crucial stage in its attempt to achieve herd immunity.
The mobile vaccination outlets -- in the form of repurposed trucks -- will be deployed in nine states starting this week.
"The idea is to cater to people who live beyond a 25-kilomter distance from the nearest vaccination center," Dr. Noraliza told The Straits Times.
In Indonesia, health authorities are giving live chickens to elderly people in rural areas in a bid to convince its citizens to get vaccinated against the virus.
The government's immunization program has been started in Cianjur regency, West Java to vaccinate people aged 45 and above. Elderly people in Indonesia believe that vaccine does not protect them against Covid-19 but it causes serious illness, according to reports.
Over in Thailand, the country has given up on its plan to impose a 16-week interval between shots of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and will go for a shorter gap of 10 to 12 weeks instead, a senior health official said Friday.
A 16-week interval has not been tested in human clinical trials.
In the Philippines, officials are planning to implement uniform isolation protocols for all Filipinos inoculated against the disease in the country and overseas, Covid-19 Task Force implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
"We want the policy for vaccinated individuals to be fair and consistent. Because even immunized people can still get infected especially now that we have new variants," The Manila Times quoted Galvez as saying.
In India, authorities said they will hold off on exports of Covid-19 vaccines until a "significant proportion" of its local population is vaccinated, the chief of the country's pandemic task force told the Associated Press.
There are currently 178 million Covid-19 cases around the world. Some 3.85 million have died from the virus.
