KUCHING: Sarawak has recommended 340,000 individuals, including medical frontliners and senior citizens be administered the Covid-19 vaccine booster shot, which is expected to start this week.
Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Datuk Sim Kui Hian said the recommendation was made by the Sarawak Covid-19 Vaccine Advisory Group (Scovag).
He said medical frontliners have been categorised as the first priority group while the second group would be those aged above 60-years-old with co-morbidities.
"They are the high risk and vulnerable groups, so we hope they can receive the booster doses within this and next month," he wrote on Facebook.
He said the Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine will be used as booster doses following the conditional approval granted by the Malaysia's Drug Control Authority (DCA).
"Those eligible for the booster shot will be administered with Pfizer, regardless the type of vaccines they were given during vaccination (earlier), whether it was AstraZeneca or Sinovac," he said.
"As of now, there are no policy decisions to use other vaccines as booster doses yet."
Dr Sim, who is also the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) advisor said, Sarawak has been entrusted by the Health Ministry to be the first to start the initiative, setting the precedent for the rest of Malaysia.
He said the state received 210,600 doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines from Belgium yesterday evening, which will be used as the booster doses.
He said the state is expected to administer the booster shot to the rest of the adults aged 18-years-old and above after completing the two priority groups – medical frontliners and senior citizens.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin previously said Sarawak will be the first state to start the booster dose programme because it was the first to complete the vaccination programme.
To date, Sarawak has completed vaccinating 90 per cent of the eligible adult population while 75 per cent of those aged between 12 and 17 had completed their first dose.