KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 – Vaccination in Sabah will be ramped up through 224 vaccination centres (PPV) and the outreach programme with the CanSino vaccine, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
Khairy visited the site of a recent landslide and floods in Kota Kinabalu that had affected a complex building of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the city.
Khairy, who also presented cash assistance to 14 staff of the HQE who had been affected by the calamity, said all of his ministry’s facilities will be strengthened with additional manpower – 97 out of 150 officers have reported for duty.
He said 50 additional health care workers (HCWs) will be offered a permanent role.
Khairy, who is on a two-day official visit to Kota Kinabalu, also paid a courtesy call on Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Hajiji Haji Noor upon his arrival there.
He later attended the Sabah Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force meeting where he was briefed on the situation in Sabah and the vaccination progress in the state.
Meanwhile, Malaysia reported a total of 17,352 new positive Covid-19 cases including 8 imported today.
Another high number of deaths were recorded at 272, although it was a drop from yesterday’s high figure of 336 deaths. So far, 18,491 people have died from the virus in the country.
In its daily update today, the Health Ministry reported recoveries of 20,201, while another 975 people were fighting the virus in intensive care units with 435 of them on assisted breathing.
A total of 1,862,187 people have been infected by the virus in Malaysia.
–WE