Khairy gestures when addressing media at the conference. – Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (Sept 26): Seventy-eight per cent of Sarawak’s adolescents aged between 16 and 17 have been administered at least the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said priority has been given to this age group because these students need to return to school for the examinations.
“78 per cent of them have received at least one dose and this is a good achievement,” he said at a press conference after a meeting with Sarawak Disaster Management Committee at Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Petra Jaya here today.
Khairy said the authorities will continue to accelerate the vaccination drive for adolescents across Sarawak.
“After this, we will give attention to those aged 12 to 15 years old. At the moment, 29 per cent of this age group have been given at least one dose,” he added.
Responding to a question, Khairy said Malaysia’s policy is to vaccinate all who are residing in the country, be they citizens, non-citizens or individuals with no legal document.
According to him, the government has had various outreach efforts with Mercy Malaysia and Malaysian Red Crescent to accelerate the vaccination rate in the country.
“We do not reject any one who walks in our vaccination centres, whether they are Malaysians, non-citizens or those without a documents.
“We have a policy – vaccines for all. And our outreach efforts with the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are still going on,” he said.
On illegal immigrants (Pati) issues, Khairy said: “We will give (the) detail(s) later.”