Covid-19: Sabah on track to have 60pct of its population vaccinated by Oct

 

Sabah is on track to achieve the target of having 60 percent of its population vaccinated by October, says Chief Minister Hajiji Nor.

He said this was based on statistics of the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) mobile outreach vaccination programme with the total vaccinations exceeding the targeted 30,000 daily doses for four consecutive days since July 21.

He said on July 21, 31,375 first and second doses of the vaccines were given to the state’s residents, followed by 32,293 on July 22, July 23 (35,749) and July 24 (32,504).

“With the arrival of the single-dose CanSino vaccine expected next month, Sabah is now on track to achieve the target,” he said in a statement after visiting a vaccine administering centre (PPV) in Keningau today.

Also, the opening of the first integrated PPV in the state at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) in Kota Kinabalu tomorrow would help increase the vaccination rate, he added.

“Together with the existing programmes, the Public-Private Partnership Covid-19 Industry Immunisation Programme (Pikas) for industrial workers and the integrated PPV, which involve two private healthcare organisations, we hope to increase the vaccination rate from 1,500 until 10,000 a day,” he said.

Hajiji also said that Sabah would receive one million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 1.8 million doses of CanSino vaccine next month.

He was previously reported to have said that Sabah hoped to achieve herd immunity of 80 percent of its population by the end of the year to curb the spread of the disease in the state.

According to the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply website, 646,420 or 16.5 percent of Sabah’s population have received the first Covid-19 vaccine dose till yesterday.

Meanwhile, Hajiji said 84.25 percent or RM88,815,600 out of RM120,469,481 allocated under the Bantuan Sabah Prihatin (BSP) 3.0 that was announced on June 9 had been channelled to help residents in the state who were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

- Bernama