Taufiq receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
KOTA KINABALU: Hospital University Malaysia Sabah (HUMS) began administering Covid-19 vaccines on Monday.
UMS Vice Chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Taufiq Yap Yun Hin said HUMS had been designated as a Category 5 Vaccine Dispensing Centre (VDC) with a capacity of administering 1,000 doses a day.
For this first week, HUMS will dispense 200 doses daily, from Monday to Friday during office hours, said Taufiq.
“With Sabah reporting the lowest vaccination rate as well as lowest vaccine take-up, this is our effort to assist in that matter towards achieving herd immunity. We cannot leave anyone unvaccinated. We will not be safe as long as there are people who have not been vaccinated.
“We have the resources, so we want to do our part and help. Currently, we have more than 100 volunteers assisting with vaccine administration. A majority of our volunteers are from a medical background, and this includes internal medical staff as well as medical students,” he said.
According to Taufiq, HUMS has formed a VDC committee to ensure vaccine administration goes smoothly.
The HUMS VDC aims to vaccinate not only UMS staff and students, but also family members and the local community, especially in the Sepanggar area.
Taufiq hoped vaccine supply will be enough for the HUMS VDC, so that the number of doses administered daily can gradually increase from 1,000 to 5,000.
“At the moment, we’ve received a lot of Sinovac vaccines as well as Pfizer. We hope to receive more so that more Sabahans can be vaccinated,” he said.
Taufiq added that plans to conduct drive-through vaccinations were also in the pipeline, depending on venue suitability.
Meanwhile, HUMS continues to conduct Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab tests and has carried out almost 40,000 tests to date.