Kinabatangan CITF finding ways to ramp up Kinabatangan's low vaccination progress

 By Olivia Miwil - September 1, 2021 @ 7:08pm

The view of Kinabatangan area in Sabah. -Pic courtesy of Kinabatangan CITF

KINABATANGAN: Kinabatangan district is facing challenges in increasing its vaccination rates.

As of yesterday, the district has one of the lowest rates of vaccinations among adults whereby only 24,030 or 16.2 per cent out of 148,600 have completed their doses.

A Kinabatangan Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force spokesman said among the factors include low registration for vaccination, geographical and logistics issues as well as overlapping administrative areas.

"Many of the people here are non-citizens. Many of them are working at the plantation and do not have relevant documents, which makes them afraid of being arrested by the authorities if they come forward to get vaccinated.

"The workers are always moving from one plantation to another, which makes it difficult to get the exact number of people in certain areas," he told the New Straits Times.

Another obstacle is the lack of transportation to ferry people from plantations or remote villages to vaccination centres.

The spokesman said the district office was also facing difficulties reaching out to the community living at the islands, coastal and river areas.

"We can borrow vehicles from the Forestry Department (for example). But they, too, need boats to go about their jobs.

"It is the same (problem) when it comes to the estates. There are over 300 plantations," he said.

The spokesman also explained that the overlapping administrative areas and people's mobility should also be considered when analysing lower vaccination rates in Kinabatangan.

Some of the sub-districts such as Suan Lamba fall under Sandakan; while people in the Paris and Jeroco sub-districts preferred to go to Lahad Datu for vaccines, he said.

He added that when those people at the said sub-districts received their vaccines, the numbers would not be reflected as Kinabatangan's vaccination data.

Despite the challenges, The spokesman gave assurances that most big plantations would be covered for vaccination soon.

He also said that the single-dose Cansino vaccine would be used in far-flung areas in Kinabatangan.

As of yesterday, Kinabatangan has recorded 1,006 active Covid-19 cases over 14 days.