Johor wants federal government to expedite providing vaccine for those under 18 years-old

ISKANDAR PUTERI: The Johor government hopes the federal government will expedite providing the COVID-19 vaccine for those aged 18 and below in the country to generate a wider herd immunity in the society.

Menteri Besar Datuk Ir Hasni Mohammad told the State Assembly today that providing the vaccine to the group was more important than giving the third or booster dose to those already vaccinated.

"What is more important is to provide the vaccination for students under 18 years old," he said in response to a supplementary question from Yeo Tung Siong (PH-Pekan Nanas) who wanted to know whether the state government was planning to provide the booster dose for frontliners.

As of yesterday, Hasni said, Johor had achieved a vaccination rate of 83.1 per cent for adults who had received at least the single dose and 52.6 per cent completed the vaccination.

Earlier, Hasni said Johor would receive a donation of 100,640 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from the Singapore government.

In expressing gratitude to the Singapore government, Hasni said Singapore had also contributed 20,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine to Johore last July 29.

"The state government also received 300,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine from the United Arab Emirates government," he said and thanked former Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein for it.

Since the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) was launched in March this year and until last Sept 5, Johor has received 4,713,800 doses of vaccine.

-- BERNAMA