Covid-19: Sarawak to review vaccinating those under 18

KUCHING: The Sarawak Covid-19 vaccine advisory group (Scovag) has been tasked to review whether those below 18 should be given the vaccine, says Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian.

The state Local Government and Housing Minister said 260 or 31% out of 836 cases reported in Sarawak on Tuesday (Aug 10) were from this age group.

"As Sarawak has been vaccinated far ahead of the country, and about 29% of our population is younger than 18, we should not wait for the national Covid-19 immunisation programme's policy and have asked Scovag to evaluate this group on vaccination," he said in a Facebook post on Tuesday night.

Last month Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government had decided not to proceed with vaccinating 12-17 year olds pending further studies of its benefits and risks.

He told Parliament this was in line with Britain's decision to postpone vaccination for this age group based on reported side effects of heart inflammation in up to 40 cases per one million doses of the Pfizer vaccine given to males aged 12 to 29 years in the United States.

Meanwhile, Dr Sim called on Sarawakians to not panic after the state registered its second highest daily number of cases on Tuesday

However, he urged them to remain on high alert.

He said 114 or 13.6% of the cases were above 18 years and involved people who had not been vaccinated yet, while 116 (13.8%) had received the first dose.

"This group will be less as in Sarawak we have almost 99.9% follow-up on dose two.

"Another 346 (41.4%) (had received) dose two. Need to analyse further how many were post-day 14," he said.

Dr Sim also said 645 or 77% of the cases were from Kuching, Samarahan and Serian, adding that this could be due to high density, mobility and networking.

However, he said very few of the positive cases were in the more serious categories three to five.

"But we still need to be on high alert as the sheer numbers of people infected can pose a challenge to our hospital systems," he added.