Vaccination for kids in Labuan to begin on Monday

LABUAN: More than 10,000 children, aged between five and 11, are eligible for Covid-19 vaccination which will start here on Monday.

Labuan Health Department director Dr Ismuni Bohari said they hoped to get widespread support for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids).

“We will officially launch this vaccination exercise on Monday at the Labuan Hospital and we hope to get a good response from the parents,” he said yesterday.

Dr Ismuni said that depending on the response, the existing vaccination centre (PPV) at Dewan Darul Kifayah could also be used to speed up the exercise.

Labuan Education Department director Yusup Mohamad said there were more than 8,000 children in Standard One to Standard Five in 17 primary schools in Labuan.

An estimated four million children aged five to 11 nationwide are eligible to receive the vaccine and, as of Feb 1, a total of 517,107 children have registered on MySejahtera.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had previously stated that the vaccine would be given free of charge to all children living in Malaysia regardless of nationality.

Khairy had also said that based on the research data, the vaccine for children, which is one-third of the adult dose, would not cause serious side effects.

The PICKids will be carried out on a voluntary basis and no restrictions will be imposed on unvaccinated children. — Bernama