BY CLEMENT ERIK WONG & TANIA LAM
KUCHING: Sarawak can look forward to receiving more batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the coming weeks.
Following the arrival of the first batch of 23,400 vaccine doses today, State Health Director Dr Chin Zin Hing said subsequent batches of the vaccine would be arriving in the state on a weekly basis.
He said the second shipment of the vaccine is scheduled to arrive in the state on Mar 4 with 31,590 doses.
“The third shipment will arrive on Mar 10 with 4,680 doses, the fourth on Mar 17 also with 4,680 doses, the fifth on Mar 24 with 14,040 doses and the sixth on Mar 31 with 9,360 doses,” he revealed during a press conference after witnessing the arrival of the vaccine here today.
Dr Chin said the first phase of vaccination would begin from Feb 26 until Mar 31, covering 97,161 frontliners.
“For Phases 2 and 3, we will start on Apr 1 and we plan to finish it by Aug 31.
“We will cover the elderly and high-risk groups with comorbidities and other diseases and there are an estimated 900,000 plus of them,” he said.
Dr Chin said Phase 3 would also involve another some 900,000 persons aged 18 and above.
“So for today’s shipment, the vaccine will be sent tomorrow to the vaccine storage centres in Kuching and Sibu. On the day after next, from these centres, it will be sent to all the vaccination centres that we have in Kuching, Samarahan, Serian, Sri Aman, Sarikei, Sibu, Kapit and Mukah,” he said.
He said once these divisions received the vaccine at the respective vaccination centres, they would begin the vaccination process for frontliners there.
“For Phase 1, altogether there are 53 vaccination centres. They will be used to vaccinate the frontliners,” said Dr Chin.
