By Karen Bong
KUCHING, March 3: A second shipment of 31,590 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has arrived in Sarawak on board a Raya Airways flight that touched down in Kuching International Airport (KIA) this evening.
Minister for Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian was at KIA’s Raya Airways Cargo Warehouse to receive and inspect the vaccines.
“The second shipment (of vaccine) also from Pfizer has arrived in Kuching safely after a long journey from Belgium to Singapore and en route to Subang before finally landing in Kuching.
“Vaccines will arrive every week in Kuching (to boost supplies) for the first phase of the National Covid-19 Vaccination Programme,” he said in his Facebook posting.
He revealed that the second batch of vaccines will be sorted out and distributed to the remaining three divisions of Miri, Bintulu and Limbang tomorrow (March 4).
“(With that) all 12 divisions of Sarawak will have vaccines to roll out the vaccination plan after tomorrow,” he added.
Dr Sim also expressed thanks to the Federal government’s vaccines task force and all the cold chain logistics to ensure the safe arrival of the vaccines in Sarawak.
He assured that the Sarawak government will continue to work closely with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Sarawak Covid-19 Advisory Group (Scovag) to achieve the State’s ambitious target of getting 2.2 million of the population to be vaccinated in the three-phased vaccination plan by August this year.
“Vaccinate as many as possible, as fast as possible and as soon as possible.
“Think big, start small and scale-up fast,” he emphasised on the State’s aggressive vaccination strategy.
Meanwhile, the first shipment of 23,400 Pfizer vaccines for Sarawak arrived in Kuching on Feb 24 and the State vaccine rollout kicked off as scheduled on Feb 26.
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
