More than eight per cent of child population in Malaysia given first dose of COVID-19 vaccine

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 289,912 children or 8.2 per cent of the child population aged between five and 11 years in Malaysia have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids) as of yesterday.

Based on the COVIDNOW website, a total of 13,607,475 individuals or 57.8 per cent of the adult population in the country have received the booster dose, while 22,940,521 individuals or 97.5 per cent have completed the vaccination and 98.7 per cent or 23,217,374 individuals have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

A total of 164,572 doses of the vaccine were administered yesterday, with 45,251 as first dose, including 42,659 doses for children aged between five and 11 years; 1,637 as second dose and 117,684 as second dose, bringing the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered under PICK to 65,524,828 dos.

According to the Health Ministry's GitHub portal, 21 deaths due to COVID-19 were recorded yesterday, with nine of them in Sabah, four cases each in Johor and Perak; two cases in Kedah and one each in Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan.

Meanwhile, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, through a post on social media today, stated that the country's infectivity rate (Rt) recorded 1.32 yesterday, with Labuan recording the highest Rt value of 1.96, followed by Sarawak (1.56) and Sabah (1.51).

-- BERNAMA