Dr Chin Zin Hing
KUCHING (Feb 17): Sarawak’s ability to complete the Covid-19 vaccination programme in August this year – some five months ahead of the national plan – is dependent on the availability of vaccines, State Health Director Dr Chin Zin Hing said.
He said that while it is the state’s aim to complete the vaccination in about six months, so far only the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine, Comirnaty, was approved for use in Malaysia.
“We plan to vaccinate them (Sarawakians) before the end of August 2021. However this will depend on the supply of vaccines,” he told The Borneo Post when asked if the state was still going ahead with its plan to complete the vaccination programme earlier than the rest of the country.
He said the Federal government was also acquiring five other vaccines from Astra Zeneca, Sputnik, SinoVac and CanSino.
“Out of these five vaccine producers, only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved by the Drug Control Authority (PBKD) and the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NRPA) on Jan 8, 2021, whereas the other four brands are being processed for approval by the NPRA,” he said.
The bulk supply of all five brands will be received by the Malaysian government on the condition of PBKD approval, in stages starting this month, he said.
Dr Chin said as of this month, Malaysia has access to vaccines good enough to provide 66.7 million doses.
This was made possible through the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) facility and early purchases from five Covid-19 vaccine producers, he explained.
Dr Chin said the authorities will be informing the public details of their distribution, including who will get which vaccine, only when there is more than one type of Covid-19 vaccine approved.
Last night, Housing and Local Government Minister Dato Sri Dr Sim Kian Hui revealed on Facebook that the state aimed to carry out the first phase of the vaccination programme from the end of this month until April for 97,000 frontliners.
He said that the second and third phase would be from the end of March to Aug this year, for 929,000 people in high risk groups and 992,000 people above 18 years old respectively.
Dr Sim said Sarawak would work closely with the Health Ministry on the roll out of the vaccination programme in the state, which would officially be launched at the Stadium Perpaduan in Petra Jaya on Feb 27.
Dr Sim had also said previously that the state government could make a bid to purchase Covid-19 vaccines on its own if the Federal government’s supply was insufficient.
The national vaccination programme will also be launched at the end of this month but is scheduled to end in February next year, with the final phase to start in May this year.
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