Pace of vaccination in Sabah still slow with only 58% adults jabbed

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah continues with its slow pace of vaccination as it struggles to reach out to villagers in far flung areas of the state.

However, officials say they are keeping to their vaccination schedule with the stock of vaccines available to carry out their programmes.

As of Saturday, only 58.3% of the state’s total adult population were fully vaccinated compared to the national average of 83.1%, according to Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV).

A total of 70.6% of adults in the state have received at least one dose. The state is also ranked last among those with the total percentage of adult population fully vaccinated.

Insisting that their count put Sabah as having 62% of its targeted 2.84 million adult population fully vaccinated and 72.3% having received at least one dose, state officials say they are pushing for more rural outreach programmes as well as reassessing the accuracy of population data in the 27 districts.

“We are progressing by doing more outreach programmes for those in rural areas. As at Sept 24, 72.3% adults have gotten their first dose while 61.6% adults have got their second dose.

“Continuous public awareness campaigns are being carried out to encourage those who are still not coming for the vaccination,” said Sabah’s immunisation programme operation director Shahelmey Yahya.

“We are also doing a mop-up approach by going house to house to reach those yet to be vaccinated.”

Sahelmey, who is the state Community Development and People’s Well-being Minister, said at least nine districts – Kinabatangan, Tawau, Telupid, Sandakan, Tongod, Papar, Semporna, Nabawan and Keningau – had yet to reach the targeted 60% of fully vaccinated adults.

“These are the districts with rural areas that require more outreach programmes,” he said.

At the same time, he said the district offices were also told to recheck their adult population data as there could be cases of people who might no longer live in those areas.

“They could have gotten vaccinated somewhere else. For example, many of those included in the statistics for Papar district may have taken their vaccine in neighbouring Kota Kinabalu, Putatan and Penampang.

“Nevertheless, we are pursuing on the ground to maximise the number of recipients,” he said, adding that there was sufficient stock of vaccine in the state.

“There are no longer any issues with supplies that previously disrupted our vaccination drives.”

He also said that the progress of vaccination for those aged between 12 and 17 was encouraging, with 201,372 or 47.2% of the targeted number of students in the state having gotten their first dose since the campaign began on Sept 16.

The state government is planning to reintroduce inter-district travel within zones by Oct 1 when the state reaches 60% fully vaccinated rate.

However, state Covid -19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun had said that those districts that failed to reach the 60% target might not be included in the zones.