By Karen Bong
KUCHING, March 3: A total of 10,801 frontliners especially medical and healthcare workers in Sarawak have received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine as of March 2 following the roll out of the first phase of the State vaccination programme on Feb 26.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas revealed that of the figure, 10,037 were medical and healthcare workers while 764 consisted of personnel from various departments and agencies.
“The State Health Department Sarawak received the first batch of 23,400 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines on Feb 24.
“The vaccines were distributed to Kuching, Samarahan, Serian, Sri Aman, Betong, Sarikei, Sibu, Kapit and Mukah divisions starting on Feb 25.
“The divisions of Bintulu, Miri and Limbang are expected to receive their supplies on March 4 (tomorrow),” he told a press conference on the Covid-19 situation in Sarawak today.
Sarawak was reported to be leading in Malaysia’s Covid-19 vaccination race yesterday with 8,323 people having been given the first shots in nine divisions in Sarawak in the first three days since the vaccine rollout.
According to a tweet on data from the National Immunisation Programme (NIP), the top three states that have administered the most Covid-19 vaccines as of 11am of March 1 was Sarawak with 7,402, Pahang with 2,419 and Perak with 1,277.
Meanwhile, the vaccine supplies in Sarawak has been boosted with the arrival of the second shipment of 31,590 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on board a Raya Airways flight that touched down in Kuching International Airport (KIA) this evening.
Sarawak has set an ambitious target to vaccinate 2.2 million of Sarawakians and non-Sarawakians in the three-phased vaccination programme by August this year.
The State vaccine rollout will be done in three phases with the first phase to be carried out until end of March involved 97,161 frontliners followed by the second phase from April to May involving 956,435 people in the high-risk groups and third phase from May to August for 999,834 healthy individuals aged 18 years and above.
Sarawak has secured the supply of more than 87,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine until the end of March.
With the arrival of the second shipment today, the third and fourth shipment which will carry 4,680 doses each are expected to be delivered on March 10 and 17 respectively.
The fifth shipment of 14,040 doses is expected to be delivered on March 24 while the sixth shipment with 9,360 doses on March 31. — DayakDaily
