'No Covid-19 vaccine wastage in Sabah'

 By Olivia Miwil - May 20, 2021 @ 3:30pm

o date, Sabah has been receiving two types of vaccines which are Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac. - STR/FAIZ ANUAR
To date, Sabah has been receiving two types of vaccines which are Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac. - STR/FAIZ ANUAR

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Health department today denied allegations that there was Covid-19 vaccine wastage happening in the state.

Its director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi was responding to an article citing Sabah PKR chief Datuk Christina Liew calling for investigations over unused vaccines that were allegedly discarded.

"To ensure there is no wastage, the number of vaccine doses are prepared based on the number of recipients of the day.

"There are no vaccines being thrown away at any time or due to the people not attending their appointments," she said in a statement, adding the staff had to ensure strict cold chain management of the vaccines to safeguard its effectiveness.

Dr Christina added that she was hoping the allegations would not affect the state-level immunisation programme which began on March 4.

To date, Sabah has been receiving two types of vaccines which are Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac.

For the first phase, 42,178 people have completed their two doses of vaccines while for the second phase, 58,369 are fully vaccinated.

She also clarified that for those who had registered early for the vaccination via the MySejahtera application but have yet to receive any calls, it was due to the immunisation task force having to prioritise who falls into the high risk groups.

As of May 18, 495,294 or 16.2 per cent of the total population in Sabah have registered for the vaccine.





Comments