KUALA LUMPUR: Sarawak recorded the highest number of Covid-19 booster shot recipients with a total of 620,180 doses administered as of Saturday, says Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali.

       He said the total consisted of 30.4% of Sarawak’s adult population.

       “The target is 2,042,700 individuals to receive the booster shots,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday, responding to Gabungan Parti Sarawak Igan MP Ahmad Johnie Zawawi’s question about Sarawak’s Covid-19 vaccination progress.

       Dr Noor Azmi also said that Sarawak was the first state to administer booster shots to eligible individuals on Oct 13.

       “As of Nov 27, a total of 1,895,532 adults in Sarawak have received at least one dose of vaccine while 1,859,794 or 91.1% have been fully vaccinated.

       “There are 259,648 teenagers aged between 12 and 17 who have received one dose of vaccine while 251,736 have been fully vaccinated.

       “This makes a total of 2,155,180 individuals having received at least one dose of vaccine in Sarawak, while 2,113,530 have been fully vaccinated,” he added.

       Dr Noor Azmi said a total of 2,194,849 individuals in the country have received their booster shots.

       “The figure makes up 9.4% of Malaysia’s 23.4 million adult population,” he said.

       He also said that since the pandemic began early last year, there had been about 30,000 Covid-19 deaths nationwide, and unvaccinated individuals were 17.9 times more likely to die from complications compared to those who were inoculated.

       “From the total number of deaths, 3,994 were fully vaccinated individuals while 5,817 were those who had received a single dose vaccination. The remaining 19,998 deaths were those who were unvaccinated,” he added.

       Meanwhile, a total of 2,702,748 or 85.9% of the country’s adolescent population aged 12 to 17 have completed their Covid-19 vaccination.

       Based on data from the Health Ministry through the CovidNow website, 2,818,165 individuals or 89.6% of the group have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of Sunday. As for the adult population, 22,659,382 individuals or 96.8% have completed their vaccination. A total of 23,006,300 or 98.3% have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

       On Sunday, 42,010 vaccine doses were dispensed with 2,030 as the first dose, 3,214 the second and 36,766 as booster doses, bringing the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme so far to 53,231,117 doses.