KOTA KINABALU: More than 300,000 adults in Sabah are at risk of losing their Covid-19 vaccination status if they do not take the booster jabs by March 1.

       Sabah Community Development and People’s Wellbeing Minister Datuk Shahelmey Yahya said the most affected were the adults who received the first and second doses of the Sinovac vaccine.

       He reminded Sinovac vaccine recipients to get a booster dose immediately to avoid losing the complete vaccination status in their MySejahtera application.

       “If adults who have completed two doses of Sinovac vaccine do not complete their booster dose, then their status as recipients of the vaccines will not remain after March 1,” he said here Tuesday (Feb 22).

       Apart from the adult vaccine recipients, Shahelmey said that the elderly who had not received the booster dose will also face a similar situation of losing their vaccination status.

       He said for the elderly, whether they had taken Sinovac, Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Cansino vaccines, they needed to get a booster dose.

       He explained that so far, about 125,000 senior citizens and 326,000 adults in the state had not taken the Covid-19 vaccine booster dose.

       As of Monday (Feb 21), state Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said only about

       14% who had completed the two doses of Covid-19 vaccine had taken their booster shots.

       He said that the booster would lessen the severity of the infection.

       Masidi said of the 44 brought-in-dead between Jan 1 and Feb 17 this year, all except two involved those who did not get their booster shots. The other two deaths were those who had their boosters.