500 health personnel mobilised to Sarawak

KUCHING: About 500 staff of the Health Ministry will be mobilised to Sarawak to help contain the increase in Covid-19 cases in the state, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba  (pic) Tuesday.

He said the staff would include doctors, nurses, medical assistants, laboratory officers and radiologists from other states  and also from the green zones in Sarawak.

“When we do contact tracing in interior areas of the outbreak, we need many staff to do the screening,” he told reporters after visiting the Vaccination Centre at Stadium Perpaduan here.

Meanwhile, on the infectivity rate (Rt) in Sarawak, Dr Adham said it increased to 1.1 today, from 1.08 Wednesday.

He said based on the monitoring and analysis carried out so far, the increasing trend in Covid-19 cases in Sarawak began since last Jan 9.

On the visit to the Vaccination Centre, Dr Adham said Sarawak is capable of handling vaccination for up to 40,000 people a day.

On the Covid-19 vaccination for media personnel, he said those who are categorised as frontliners would get the vaccination under phase two of the National Covid-19 Immunisation programme.

 Earlier, Dr Adham paid a courtesy call on Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg at the latter’s office at Wisma Bapa Malaysia.

Meanwhile, a total of 409,784 individuals in the first phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme have completed receiving both doses of their vaccine shots as of Monday.

Dr Adham said 609,153 individuals were given the first dose during the same period, bringing the total number of doses administered so far to 1,018,937.

Based on an infographic shared on his official Twitter page today, Selangor recorded the state with the highest recipients of the first dose, at 80,195, followed by Sarawak (63,539), Kuala Lumpur (57,152), Johor (56,663) and Sabah (54,309). 

Selangor also recorded the highest number of recipients who had completed both doses, totalling 54,820 individuals, followed by Perak (46,592), Sabah (41,948), Kuala Lumpur (34,683) and Pahang (32,688).

On the number of registrations for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, Dr Adham said, it was 8,602,156 or 35.5 per cent with Selangor recording the highest number with 2,291,633 registrations.

According to the immunisation programme, the implementation period of the first phase of vaccination is from February to April, involving 500,000 frontliners, including health workers.

The programme will continue with the second phase, from April to August this year involving 9.4 million senior citizens, aged 60 and above, as well as the vulnerable groups with morbidity problems, in addition to persons with disabilities.

The third phase scheduled from May to February 2022 is for individuals aged 18 and above, targeting about 14 million people.