Sabah will receive 140,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines every week starting from this week. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin
KOTA KINABALU, July 6 — Sabah will receive 140,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines every week starting from this week for the immunisation programme in the state, said Sabah Minister of Community Development and People’s Well-being Shahelmey Yahya.
He said this was following Chief Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor’s request to the federal government to increase the supply of vaccines to Sabah immediately to meet the target of administering 30,000 vaccine jabs a day.
He said that since the federal and state governments were doing their best to get the vaccine supplies, the people of Sabah should cooperate by getting vaccinated and encouraging those closest to them to be inoculated too.
“With the arrival of this new batch of vaccine supply, the state government hopes the daily vaccination rate can be more than doubled from the current 10,000 to 12,000 doses a day so that we can together achieve herd immunity by the end of this year.
“This week, 140,000 doses of vaccines are scheduled to arrive via the Kota Kinabalu International Airport,” he told a press conference today.
Earlier, he launched the Sabahchat line at the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Integrated Complex here, which aims to help Sabahans affected by the pandemic.
Shahelmy said the 24-hour helpline could be reached at 011-25254232, with the most number of calls involving child abuse and domestic violence.
“This line is open to all emotionally and psychologically affected community groups, children, single mothers, the elderly, youths, individuals who have lost their jobs and the frontliners,” he said. — Bernama