KOTA KINABALU: The progress of Covid-19 vaccinations in Sabah are better than statistics suggest as there are other factors to consider, says Ceaser Mandela Malakun.

       The Sabah Chief Minister's political secretary said although only about 4% of those registered in Sabah had been fully vaccinated, this percentage is higher than some states which have received a higher number of vaccines.

       As of Monday (June 27), a total of 2,087,456 Malaysians have received both doses of vaccines.

       Sabah, with 173,701 (4.4% of those registered) fully vaccinated, is in fourth place after Selangor, Sarawak and Perak.

       Malakun said the statistics may not reflect the real situation as manual registration takes time to be entered into the MySejahtera database.

       He said Sabah had the capability to administer 30,000 doses of vaccines per day.

       However, he said this can be increased but this was limited to 12,000 to 13,000 doses per day due to the supply of vaccines, with more expected to be delivered in July and August.

       "Sabah will receive 729,000 vaccine doses in July followed by 1.1 million in August," he said.

       He also said over the next two months, more vaccination centres (PPV) would be set up in the state including outreach programmes in remote areas and walk-in programmes to 'vaccinate and register'.

       Malakun said the Sabah government was doing its best to push up vaccination rates in the state.

       He said it was unfair to throw the blame on the government as it did not have any control over vaccine manufacturers' ability to meet global demand.