Bung Moktar
KOTA KINABALU: The insufficient supply of Covid-19 vaccines in the state is hampering the government efforts to get more people vaccinated, said Deputy Chief Minister Dato Seri Bung Moktar Radin.
Bung Moktar in a statement on Sunday, said that due to the increasing demand of the people in the state to receive the vaccine, the existing supply is not enough to meet the needs of those who have registered at MySejahtera or through manual registration.
“I understand that hospitals had to postpone the appointments of the vaccine recipients due to lack of vaccine supply. This should not have happened in our efforts to speed up the vaccination to the people,” he said.
According to Bung Moktar who is also the Works Minister, he was informed that currently about 11,000 people are vaccinated daily and the figure was supposed to increase to 20,000 a day.
However, the insufficient supply of vaccines and other constraints make the target difficult to achieve, he said.
Bung Moktar pointed out that the government had intensified various awareness campaigns in Sabah on the benefits of being vaccinated including the National Covid-19 Outreach Immunization (PICK) program to rural areas.
The government also opened up several new vaccination centres but all the efforts are hampered when the vaccine supply is insufficient,” he lamented.
In this regard, Bung Moktar urged the Federal government, especially the relevant ministries to see this issue as an important matter so that justice for those to be vaccinated can be met in line with the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
He also opined that as the Covid-19 positive cases in the state are still under control Sabah should be listed in Phase 2 of the National Rehabilitation Plan.
“The Federal government should take into account the safety and health of Sabahans by providing adequate vaccines for the people in the state. Many countries have succeeded in curbing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic by providing vaccines to their people, so we need to speed up the process of providing vaccines to the people in this country, especially in Sabah where we target to get at least 85 percent of Sabahans vaccinated by October this year,” added Bung Moktar who is also the Sabah Umno chief.