Sabah ready for National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government has made the necessary preparations to ensure the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme succeeds, says Chief Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor.

He said the preparations included setting up the COVID-19 Immunisation Special Task Force under Sabah State Secretary, Datuk Safar Untong.

"At the district and grassroots level, the respective district officers and community leaders will do their part in implementing the programme.

"Sabah is ready for the vaccination drive," he said at the engagement session via video conferencing with Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin who is also co-chair of the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply at the Sabah State Administrative Centre, here, today.

Also at the meeting were Safar, Sabah Health director, Datuk Dr Christina Rundi and Sabah National Security Division director, Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof.

Hajiji concurred with Khairy on the need for mobile units be set up not only in administering the vaccine jabs but also to register those in far-flung areas.

In this respect, Hajiji said steps have been taken to disseminate information in various ethnic languages on the programme to the grassroots through the Information Department.

"The (first batch) of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines arrived in Sabah today and the vaccination programme will be carried out under three phases with the first phase for frontliners (104,130), second phase for the high-risk group (estimated 268,000 individuals).

"The third phase is for those aged 18 years and above (estimated at 2.7 million)," he said, adding that 195 Vaccine Dispensing Centres (93 under the Ministry of Health and 102 others) have been set up in Sabah," he added.

Hajiji also advised the people in Sabah to register for the vaccination programme to facilitate it and break the pandemic's chain of infections, which could be done through the mySejahtera application or www.vaksincovid.gov.my website, while those without a smart phone, particularly senior citizens, could be registered as dependents through their children.

Registration could also be done manually at the nearest public health facilities such as hospitals, district health offices or health clinics.

"So far, only about 30 per cent of senior citizens aged 60 and above have registered in mySejahtera for the immunisation programme in Sabah," he said, adding that it was imperative for everyone in the state to be registered because "we want to break the chain of infections."

On the issue of the vaccine to also be given to foreigners in Sabah as stated by Khairy, Hajiji said the state government would once again obtain the cooperation of employers of foreign workers.

Before this, cooperation from these employers had been sought to get all their workers swabbed for COVID-19, he said.

"We have also informed the security forces that this is not the time to check documents....we need to get all in Sabah vaccinated. We will still not be safe if there are those residing in Sabah not vaccinated," he added.

To a question from Khairy, the Chief Minister said he would be the first to get the vaccine in Sabah.

-- BERNAMA