KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 18,453,322 individuals or 78.8 per cent of the adult population in Malaysia have been fully vaccinated as of yesterday, according to the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV).

JKJAV in an infographic on its official Twitter today, said 93.3 per cent or 22,001,266 individuals of the adult population had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

On the daily vaccination rate, it said 219,081 doses were administered yesterday, 60,773 as the first dose and 158,308 the second dose, bringing the total number of doses dispensed under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) to 40,375,056.

PICK was launched on Feb 24 this year to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, according to the COVIDNOW portal and GitHub of the Ministry of Health (MOH), the number of fatalities due to COVID-19 had increased by 376 as of 11.59pm on Sept 19, bringing the country's death toll to 23,443.

The total includes seven actual daily COVID-19 deaths recorded in a 24-hour period (Sept 19), while the remaining deaths were backlog cases, but the figure could change as the cases were being updated.

Based on the graph of the seven-day average number of actual COVID-19 daily deaths, the death rate shows a declining trend as the number of people who have been partially or fully vaccinated increased.

-- BERNAMA