KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Covid-19 Spokesperson, Datuk Seri Masifi Manjun, said the statistics for Sabah in the MySejahtera may not be correct because many Sabahans especially those on the rural areas prefer to register manually & not via MySejahtera app.
“The statistics of manual registration take time to be factored into MySejahtera. Thus the statistics for Sabah in the MySejahtera may may not be correct,” he said in a statement.
The Local Government and Housing Minister said there is also no problem of getting people and volunteers to assist in the registration exercise.
Because there is a task force in every district which is coordinating the exercise & many govt agencies are involved, he added.
Masidi said the real issue is not the number of people who have registered.
“The main issue is the current lack of vaccines to enable Ministry of Health (MOH) to ramp up our vaccination programmes.
“In Sabah registration is not the eventual prerequisite to get vaccination. Once sufficient supply of vaccines is available, we will do a a walk-in exercise, ‘register and get vaccinated’ on the spot.
“In fact, the Medical Corps of the Armed Forces have agreed to do outreach vaccination program to far flung villages in Sabah. I have just met and discussed this with the Director of Armed Forces Medical Corps,” he said.
According to Masidi, there is short supply of vaccines worldwide as the manufacturers cannot meet delivery deadline due to overwhelming orders.
“Nearly all countries are facing the same problem. Malaysia has placed an order and paid for 120% of our vaccines requirements but manufacturers can only deliver in batches.
“Bulk of the order is only expected to be delivered in July and August. Sabah’s quota has been increased, 792,000 doses in July & 1.1 million doses in August,” he disclosed.
Masidi said; “By next month we could double our current vaccination number from the present 12,000 per day up to around 30,000 & 37,000 by August.
“Assuming all the vaccines are delivered in time, Sabah is still on target to achieve herd immunity by the end of this year.”
The Minister said many naively suggested that Sabah should buy its own vaccines to speed up immunisation in the State.
“The fact of the matter is that there are no ready stock behind the counter to buy (unless probably you want to buy non-NPRA approved vaccines).
“International protocol on procurement of vaccines dictates that national government order takes priority over state or individual order.
“It means Sabah has to queue up way behind our national government and other governments order to wait delivery, which mean by the time the State vaccines order arrives, all Malaysians would have already been vaccinated for free,” he explained.
He further explained that all purchases of vaccines in Malaysia are done via ‘govt-to-manufacturers’ arrangement.
“No middlemen involved. The exception is Sinovac vaccines which have to be purchased from Pharmaniaga Bhd, a government-linked company (GLC).
“The reason is, Pharmaniaga Bhd is the registered local patent owner of Sinovac vaccines. The company buys the vaccines in bulk from China & repackage them in doses form in its local pharmaceutical plant,” said Masidi.
