KOTA KINABALU: The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) has called on the federal government to quickly ramp up Sabah’s Covid-19 vaccination programme, so that the state could achieve ‘herd immunity’ to facilitate a speedy recovery.
Urging this was its President, Tan Sri T.C Goh while expressing his disappointment and grave concern over the slow progress of Sabah’s Covid-19 vaccination, which is currently the lowest in the country.
He was puzzled by such a discouraging scenario, especially citing the huge disparity (in vaccination rate) between Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan, despite their close proximity; the federal government recently announced that Labuan has the highest vaccination rate in the country.
In a statement issued today, Goh who is also a member of Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC) cum President of the Federation of Sabah and Labuan Hokkien Associations (FSLHA) further noted that, even the neighbouring state of Sarawak is the state with second highest vaccination rate, after Labuan.
“It’s rather strange and unreasonable that Sabah currently has the lowest vaccination rate in the country, while the neighbouring Labuan and Sarawak have the highest and second highest vaccination rate,” he lamented.
He opined that the federal government and the Ministry of Health owed the people of Sabah a good explanation on such a strange phenomenon.
“Whatever the reason may be, most importantly, the federal government must strive to rectify such a discouraging situation without further delay!” he underscored.
He noted that, official statistics published on 19 July indicated that 60.1% of Labuan’s population has received first dose of vaccine, and 44.4% has completed the second dose; in Sarawak, 56.15% of its population has received first dose of vaccine and 33.1% completed the second dose; as for Sabah, only 501,110 individuals or 12.8% of the total population have received the first dose of vaccine, and only 366,342 individuals or 9.4% have completed the second dose.
“Official statistics also revealed that, as of Monday, Sabah remained the only state with less than 10% of its population having completed two doses of vaccine, which is the lowest in the country,” he added.
In other words, more than 80% of Sabah population has yet to be vaccinated, which is obviously far lagging behind the goal of achieving herd immunity, by the end of this year, which was set by the federal government.
“This is certainly very unfair for the people of Sabah!” he said.
He thus called on National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to immediately ramp up vaccine supply for Sabah. Besides this, he also hoped the federal Ministry of Health could work closely with Sabah state government and state health department, to better facilitate and expedite the ongoing vaccination programme in Sabah.-pr/BNN
