KOTA KINABALU: A supply of 94,500 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is expected to arrive in Sabah soon to ease shortages that forced rescheduling of the second dose for recipients since Friday.

       State Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that the Pfizer vaccines were expected to arrive here from Kuching in a few days.

       “It was supposed to arrive yesterday (Friday) but the Air Force aircraft had some mechanical problem and alternative transport is now being arranged,” he said yesterday.

       On Friday, many who turned up at the vaccination centre (PPV) in the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) for their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine had their appointments rescheduled.

       A notice stating that the Pfizer second jab appointments scheduled from Aug 28 to Sept 2, have now been rescheduled for Sept 3 to Sept 10.

       The SICC PPV, one of the largest in the state, operates from 8am to 5pm daily.

       He also said it would be up to the state Health Department to decide on the continuation of the second dose vaccination that was disrupted.

       Masidi said Sabah received 515,150 vaccines doses – Pfizer (351,150 doses), Sinovac (70,000 doses) and CanSino (94,000 doses) – over the past week.

       Health authorities have begun administering the single dose CanSino vaccines to people in far-flung islands following a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state.

       Saturday’s report showed a drop in the number of positive cases recorded on Friday from 3,010 cases to 2,834.

       He said 61% or 1,751 cases detected on Saturday were from direct contact, while 27.5% or 778 cases were from symptomatic screening.

       Masidi said Kota Kinabalu recorded 603 cases and its neighbouring Penampang district recorded 396 cases, a third of the new cases in the state.

       He said there were two new clusters, one involving a wedding ceremony in interior Nabawan that infected 66 people and another work place cluster in Kinabatangan district that infected 67 people to date.