KOTA KINABALU: Insufficient vaccine supply in Sabah has forced hospitals to postpone the appointment of Covid-19 inoculation recipients.

Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Bung Moktar Radin said the postponement should not have occurred as the state government has intensified efforts to speed up vaccination to the people starting this month.

The state government urged the federal government to immediately dispatch vaccines to the state to address the shortage because of the increasing number of people registered manually and via online MySejahtera, he said.

Bung Moktar who is also the state Works Minister said the vaccines should be increased to 20,000 doses a day because reports received from all districts statewide showed that between 10,000 and 11,000 people had appointments with the hospitals. 

He said the state government intensified efforts through the various programmes including expanding the National Immunisation Covid-19 Programme (NIP) to rural areas and opening more vaccine administration centres (PPVs) will be hampered by insufficient vaccine.

He also urged the federal government to take into account the low number of Covid-19 positive cases in Sabah and to include the state in Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan (NRP).

"We need to speed up the delivery of vaccines to Sabah in order to achieve the 85 per cent herd immunity by October," said Bung Moktar who is also the Sabah Umno Chief.

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/07/705069/sabah-facing-insufficient-covid-19-vaccine-doses