Chan urges Khairy to take heed of vaccine shortage in Sabah
28 Aug 2021
By Ilona Andrew
KOTA KINABALU: Newly appointed Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who was previously the coordinating minister of the National Immunisation Programme has been urged to look into the vaccine shortage issues in Sabah.
Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin said while Khairy had done a comparatively better job than the other members of the past government cabinet, the distribution of vaccines in Sabah remains a problem as it is still now the slowest in the whole of Malaysia.
According to him, he has received numerous complaints from his constituents where they were turned down during their appointments for Pfizer vaccination yesterday.
These people whose appointments were at the Sabah International Conventional Centre (SICC) were told that their appointments have been rescheduled to Sept 3 onwards.
"I have been made to understand that this is due to either a disruption in the timely delivery of vaccines or plain insufficient supply of vaccine.
"Why is the rescheduling not reflected on the MySejahtera application? Why is it that the SICC vaccination centre had to resort to turning people away instead? Worst still, if it is true that all appointments for the second dose have been rescheduled to after Sept 3, then why are some people still receiving reminders to attend their second dose at SICC?
"Either way, a mega vaccination like SICC running out of vaccines and turning people away shows that something is really, really wrong. This gives the impression that the government is not serious enough in wanting to take control of the Covid-19 pandemic," he said in a statement today.
Chan expressed hope that Khairy would take heed and ensure timely and sufficient vaccine supplies to Sabah as the state has been recording an average of 3,000 daily cases with the number of deaths rising these past few days.
"Besides that, I also hope that Khairy will look into providing or redirecting more Covid-19 treatment resources into Sabah, including medical personnel and medical equipment.
"The existing medical resources in Sabah really, really cannot cope with the surge in Covid-19 cases seen in Sabah right now. The most obvious sign is the capacity of the Covid-19 bed, right now at 99 per cent in Sabah."
