Solve Sabah S Vaccine Shortage Mp Urges Khairy

---

 
Photos posted by SAPP president Yong Teck Lee yesterday, showing an empty vaccination centre at the Sabah International Convention Centre. (Facebook pic)KOTA KINABALU: A Sabah MP hopes the new health minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, will be the person to tackle the inconsistent delivery of vaccines and lack of health resources in the state.
Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin of DAP noted that Khairy would still be in charge of vaccination, following the government’s decision to place the national Covid-19 immunisation programme under the health ministry. Khairy had previously been in charge of vaccine supplies and was coordinator of the immunisation programme.
“With Khairy’s appointment as health minister, I hope that he will look into the acute vaccine shortage and speed up vaccination in Sabah,” he said in a statement here today.
Chan said although Khairy had been doing a comparatively better job than the other members of the past federal Cabinet, vaccine delivery to Sabah remained a problem.
He said he had received numerous complaints of vaccine shortage from his constituents going for their second Pfizer dose appointment at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) vaccination centre yesterday.
“They were instead turned away and were told that all appointments for the second dose have been rescheduled to Sept 3 onwards.
“I have been made to understand that this is due to either a disruption in the timely delivery of vaccines or plain insufficient supply,” he said.
Chan questioned why the rescheduling of the appointments were not reflected on the MySejahtera app of those concerned. “Why did SICC resort to turning people away instead?
“Worst still, if it is true that all appointments for (the) second dose have been rescheduled, then why are some people still receiving reminders to go for their appointments,” he said, adding this has caused much confusion.
As such, he urged Khairy to pay attention to the vaccine issues in Sabah, saying the Covid-19 situation in the state is becoming worse with a record high 41 deaths registered yesterday.
He also called on the Rembau MP to provide or redirect more health resources into Sabah including medical personnel and equipment.
He said the existing resources are unable to cope with the current surge in daily infections, adding that the utilisation rate for Covid-19 beds now stood at 99% in Sabah.
Earlier today, Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Masidi Manjun said a total of 1,414,020 doses of the Pfizer, Sinovac and CanSino vaccines have been delivered to Sabah so far.
He said another 99,400 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive from Kuching in a few days’ time. - FMT

---