KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 — The government will focus on six states with low Covid-19 vaccination rates, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri said today.
He said while the Klang Valley has exceeded target vaccination rate, the six states’ vaccination rate remains low and are below 50 per cent.
“I have discussed with the secretary-general of the Health Ministry (MOH) and the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (Mosti), so that our focus will be on these six states.
“I want these six states to exceed 50 per cent by end of September, I don’t want to see anymore states that are less than 50 per cent,” he told a press conference the WTC mega vaccination centre here today.
The six states are Terengganu (46.2 per cent), Perak (46.5 per cent), Johor (44.9 per cent), Kelantan (43.2 per cent), Kedah (43 per cent) and Sabah (37.1 per cent).
He added that if there are delays in vaccine delivery, the government will not wait anymore, instead it will utilise the Sinovac vaccine that is bottled by Pharmaniaga Bhd locally.
“Pharmaniaga does bottling for Sinovac and is always on standby to supply vaccines.
“If what we bought can’t arrive in time, we don’t want to wait when they are late, we have no obligation to wait for them, our people cannot wait.
“Forget about those who are late, we will use what we have here,” he added.
On August 12, it was reported that Pharmaniaga had successfully completed its obligation to supply 12.4 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine to the federal government on July 16, four-and-a-half months ahead of the contract schedule.
The latest order, it said, is on top of another additional two million doses previously ordered by MOH on July 26.
