Batu Lintang rep urges state gov’t to reveal progress, details of Covid-19 vaccine procurement

KUCHING (Mar 27): Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How is urging the state government to reveal the progress and details of Sarawak’s procurement of Covid-19 vaccines to ensure that all, or at least 70 per cent, Sarawakians are vaccinated by August this year.

Speaking at the Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) Southern Zone Taskforce Facebook Live session, he described the national vaccination as ‘too little, too slow’.

“As at March 25, 536,681 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines had been administered at a going rate of about 18,723 doses being administered per day in the last week.

“Presently, only 443,124 (1.34 percent) of the population have received their first dose, and only 93,557 (0.28 percent) Malaysians have received their second dose,” he said, citing an infographic information by The Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV).

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The infographic was also shared by Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba in his Twitter yesterday.

At this rate, he said Malaysia was lagging far behind other countries such as Israel, United Kingdom, Chile, United States and Singapore, as he said 57.5 percent of Israel’s population have received their first doses with vaccination rate of 60,471 doses per day in the last week; United Kingdom (43 percent of population received first dose, vaccination at 554,271 doses per day), Chile (33 percent of population with first dose, vaccination at 246,292 doses per day), United States (26 percent of population received first dose, vaccination at 2.45 million doses per day), Singapore (14 percent of population received first dose, vaccination at 35,566 doses per day).

He then called on the federal and the state government to accelerate the vaccination of Malaysians, particularly Sarawakians, as at the current pace, he said Malaysians can only be vaccinated with the two doses after nine years.

“The federal health minister had projected that we are to administer 126,000 doses of vaccines per day. That is more than six times our ongoing rate.

“There is all the more reason for the government to engage the private hospitals and clinics to assist in the vaccination process. However, we must also look at the promptness of the arrival of the vaccines, ” he added.

Quoting another infographic information from JKJAV, he said as at February the government had secured 66.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines through the COVAC Facility and advance purchases from five vaccine manufacturers – with 32 million doses from Pfizer, AstraZeneca (12.8 million doses), Sinovac (12 million doses), CanSinoBIO (3.5 million doses) and Sputnik V (6.4 million doses).

Although he said the 66.7 million doses of vaccines were more than sufficient to vaccinate all Malaysians, he further questioned when the vaccines would arrive in the country.

Citing the vaccines from Pfizer, he said only up to 12.8 million doses or 40 percent of those purchased are expected to be supplied to Malaysia this year.

“Earlier, the federal Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had disclosed the break-down of the supply of 12.8 million doses of Pfizer vaccines for Malaysia – 1 million doses in the first quarter; 1.7 million doses in the second quarter; 5.8 million doses in third quarter and 4.3 million doses in fourth quarter.

“And it appears that the projection of having the supply of 12.8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccines might not be met. The government has estimated that 1 million doses will be supplied to us in this first quarter, but only 650,000 doses were actually received,” he added.

With the progress of the national vaccination exercise deemed ‘too little too slow’, See said he fully support the Sarawak government’s initiative to procure the vaccines itself to ensure that all or at least 70 percent of Sarawakians will be vaccinated by August.

“We need to speed up the drive to immunise our Sarawakian population to break the chain of the pandemic, to protect the health and safety of all Sarawakians and to achieve our state economic recovery targets.

“With the Federal Government having given us the green light, we must act on the good initiative to complement the national vaccination effort, such that all Sarawakians are the target priority.

“Hopefully, the State Government and particularly the SDMC will reveal to all Sarawakians the progress of our procurement of the vaccines and the roadmap to vaccinate all or at least 70 percent of Sarawakians in 4 months’ time,” he said.

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