By Olivia Miwil - September 6, 2021 @ 3:36pm
\KOTA KINABALU: The Health Ministry will organise more than 130 outreach vaccination programmes for two months in Sabah.
Its minister Khairy Jamaluddin said such an approach was to ensure Sabah achieved its 60 per cent adult vaccination target by the end of this month and 80 per cent next month.
"With the Federal government's commitment in sending 2.8 million vaccine doses this month to Sabah, we are confident of ramping up the daily vaccination rate to 70,000.
"We cannot rely solely on the existing vaccination centres to inoculate the people," he said during a press conference after chairing a meeting with the Sabah Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force, here.
Following the increase in the state's Covid-19 cases over the past few weeks, he said the meeting was to look into the immunisation and management of the pandemic.
Present were Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor, Sabah Covid-19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun, state Health exco Shahelmey Yahya and state health director Dr Rose Nani Mudin.
Sabah had achieved its daily 60,000 vaccination target on Aug 19 which pushed the adult vaccination rate above 40 per cent.
However, for the past 10 days, the daily vaccination rate dropped to an average 40,000 despite many centres offering walk-ins for the public.
Vaccination rates at nine out of 26 districts including Semporna, Beluran, Tawau, Kunak, Nabawan, Sandakan, Tongod, Kinabatangan and Papar are below 35 per cent.
As for the equipment to handle the pandemic, Khairy said 480 oxygen tanks, 24 boxes of regulators and five boxes of medicines would be sent here tomorrow by the army. Sabah will also receive another 29 ambulances.
Apart from that, the ministry will also prepare a 10-bed modular intensive care unit (ICU) and an additional field hospital in Tawau.
'As for now, the ICU occupancy is at 90 per cent and ventilator capacity at 46 per cent.
"I will discuss with Sabah next week to ensure ICU capacity and oxygen is adequate. It will not be a problem."
Khairy added that 97 medical officers reported for duty here on Aug 2 and Sept 1.
"Permanent positions will be offered to 50 medical officers starting Sept 13, while the remaining required manpower will be filled by housemen.
"I will also ensure 78 assistant medical officers, who were mobilised in Selangor, return here at the latest by the end of this week," he said.
Khairy also said Covid-19 assessment centres will be improved and include virtual communications for convenience and to prevent congestion.
As for the variants of concern, he assured that the ministry has been doing genomic surveillance for the viruses especially when the Lambda variant was reported in the Philippines.
"We have allocated funds for the Health Ministry and Mosti, as well as higher learning institutes for virus genomic surveillance.
"As the borders are porous between Malaysia and the Philippines, we need to keep the variant out of the country."
Khairy is also scheduled to visit the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here and the Papar Hospital.
He is scheduled to inspect vaccination programmes in Semporna tomorrow followed by working visits to the Tawau Hospital and a field hospital.
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