More manpower deployed on Sabah's east coast to speed up vaccination

KOTA KINABALU: Additional manpower has been deployed on Sabah's east coast to intensify the Covid-19 vaccination process and help the state achieve its target of fully vaccinating 80% of the adult population by the end of October.

State Community Development and People's Wellbeing Minister Datuk Shahelmey Yahya, who is also state immunisation programme operations director, said the extra team is expected to help approach and convince unvaccinated people there as well.

"The State Health Department has sent an extra 40 personnel to Sandakan and other towns in east coast districts, to intensify the outreach (mobile) programme for target groups to be vaccinated.

"With this, we believe adult vaccination could be pushed to higher numbers and reach the 80% target soon," he said on Wednesday (Oct 6).

As of Monday (Oct 4), 74.6% of the state's adult population had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while 66.9% have been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, 65.4% of adolescents have also received their first dose.

While the progress of adult vaccinations appeared slow, Shahelmey said this was probably an indication that many have already been vaccinated.

To date, the vaccination level for the adult population in seven out of Sabah's 26 districts remained below 60%, which meant that strict movement controls are still in place there.

The districts are Kinabatangan, Tawau, Tongod, Sandakan, Semporna, Papar and Nabawan.

Sabah recorded 790 new infections on Wednesday, down from 805 the day before.