KOTA KINABALU: The Federal Government and Sabah are cross-checking its vaccination rate data, as it believes its adult vaccination rate is higher than what the current statistics show.

       State Community Development and People’s Wellbeing Minister Datuk Shahelmey Yahya, who is the state immunisation programme operations director, said this is probably due to a number of the population who had moved out of the state and gotten their vaccinations elsewhere.

       He said that as of Oct 30, the state had fully inoculated 74.35% of its adult population, despite the target of 80% by end of October.

       Meanwhile for the adolescent category, 63.4% have been fully vaccinated as of Oct 30, he told reporters after launching the state-level Deepavali 2021 celebration maximum price scheme and walkabout held at CKS Manggatal supermarket on Monday (Nov 1).

       “When we did the house-to-house (vaccination drive), we found that most of our people had already been vaccinated.

       “We had a meeting with the national level (vaccine administration) committee and the federal side will help with fine-tuning the statistics or denominators of Sabahans.

       “This is because we believe there are Sabahans whose data are still here but are currently staying outside Sabah and have received their vaccinations elsewhere.

       “For example, if we look at the records of the latest Bantuan Prihatin Sabah list, 171,000 qualified Sabahan recipients are actually outside of Sabah, for example in the Klang Valley or Johor.

       “So based on that, they might have also gotten their vaccination outside of Sabah, but their data is still listed in Sabah,” he explained.

       Shahelmey, however, said the immunisation programme will continue to reach those who have yet to be vaccinated, including the mobile outreach programme at Sabah’s east coast.

       “We encouraged those who are still undecided on getting vaccinated, to please come forward.

       “As reported, starting this month civil servants who refused to get vaccinated without giving health reasons can face disciplinary actions.

       “For public members, we will continue to impose Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) requiring only those fully inoculated can do dealings at government offices and public premises,” he added.