The Medical Association of Malta (MAM) is calling out the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, saying that so far, one in ten healthcare workers have received the jab.

While the association praised the health ministry for procuring 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 100,000 from Moderna and one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, it said that a large number of healthcare professionals were feeling let down by the roll out.

“The vast majority of healthcare professionals are feeling let down as to date, only approximately one out of ten has received the first dose of the vaccine, especially when it is public knowledge that the government has in its freezers many more vaccines than front liners, and about 19,000 vaccines remain idle in the freezers,” the organisation said.

The MAM noted it was alarmed to learn that health authorities are reportedly aiming to provide only 5,000 vaccinations per week. This meant that vaccinating the entire Maltese population would take three years if done at this rate, they said.

“The Health authorities should also aim to vaccinate the whole population as fast as possible so as to make everybody safe and to kick start economic recovery as soon as possible,” the MAM continued.

“MAM is making its calculations public and invites the health authorities to mobilise its own healthcare workers to get Malta out of this crisis as soon as possible. Vaccination rates should only be limited by outside factors affecting supply and not by local inefficiencies in organisation.”

As reported by Times of Malta, the number of people receiving the jab should increase to 2,000 per week in the coming days and then to 5,000 weekly vaccinations. As per the expected schedule, by mid-February, all front liners and those over 85 years of age should be vaccinated, with the second batch then inoculating those over 80 years of age and all remaining frontliners.