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Dr Sim welcomes approval of two new vaccines

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KUCHING: Minister of Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian welcomed the announcement by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today that Malaysia had granted conditional approval to the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by China’s CanSino Biologics and the United States’ Johnson & Johnson for emergency use.

“The approval of two additional vaccines by CanSino and Johnson & Johnson will have enormous implications and impacts for Sarawak, especially those in the rural areas where accessibility is challenging,” he said in a Facebook post today (June 15).

Dr Sim pointed out the two vaccines only required a single dose immunisation and thus, would greatly speed up and complete the vaccination process in Sarawak.

On the additional approval for the use of United States-Germany’s Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for recipients aged 12 and above, Dr Sim assured that the vaccine was safe and efficacious for those in the age group.

“While we are just starting to scale up vaccination for those eligible above 18 years old which we target to complete  by August (this year), because of Sarawak’s population demography and in order to achieve the herd immunity of more than 70 percent, we need to vaccinate 99 percent of Sarawakians above 18 years old,” he explained..

Dr Sim added that the US and some countries aimed to achieve herd immunity of more than 80 percent because of concern that the virus was air borne.

“Therefore, once we  have vaccinated all the eligible Sarawakians aged 18 and above, and if we still can’t achieve the herd immunity of more than 70 percent, then we can safely vaccinate those aged 12 to 18 years old to achieve the herd immunity,” he said.

He added that although the effects of Covid-19 were worse on the elderly population, up to 20 percent of the cases this year were those below 20 years old.

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