The consignment of the vaccines being transported out of the cargo aircraft. – Photo from Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian/Facebook
KUCHING (June 17): Sarawak yesterday received another batch of 44,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, said Local Government and Housing Minister Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian.
He said the vaccine shipment arrived at the Kuching International Airport in the afternoon as part of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) weekly schedule.
“More vaccines will be arriving in Miri Airport tomorrow (June 17) and Kuching Airport on Friday (June 18),” said Dr Sim, who is also Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) advisor, in a Facebook post.
Last month, PICK coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said that Sarawak will receive 380,000 doses of vaccines every week from June till August.
This is to ensure that the state achieves its target of inoculating 2.2 million people by the end of August.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg earlier yesterday had said Sarawak aimed to accelerate the pace of its vaccination programme by administering 50,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine daily.
He said this would contribute towards achieving the target of vaccinating at least 80 per cent of the state’s population in order to achieve herd immunity by August.
He pointed out the state administered 45,291 doses of Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, and he was confident that the new target of 50,000 doses would be achievable when the next few shipments of Covid-19 vaccines arrived in the state.
Apart from Pfizer-BioNTech, the other Covid-19 vaccines administered in the state are Sinovac and AstraZeneca.