KOTA KINABALU: Sabah continues to play catch-up to the rest of the country in vaccinating its adult population.

       Six districts, including two major towns on Sabah's east coast, have yet to reach the 60% mark of fully-vaccinated adults.

       "The districts are Kinabatangan, Sandakan, Tongod, Tawau and Papar," said state Community Development and People Well-being Minister Shahelmey Yahya, but added that Papar was close to achieving it.

       Asked why urban areas like Sandakan and Tawau were unable to reach their targets, he said that there were several reasons.

       "Some of the people included in the two districts' statistics may not live there.

       "They may be working outside the districts but they are still counted as residents of the districts and are foreigners who may have already gone back to their own countries," he added.

       He said that some people had yet to decide or were still hesitant to take up the vaccines, but their numbers were small.

       He also said that the state Health Department recently went to a settlement village in Sandakan with an estimated adult population of 5,000 under an outreach program.

       "They only vaccinated 152 people with Pfizer and another 98 with CanSino as most of the adult population had already been vaccinated," he added.

       In Sabah, 69.4% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated as at Oct 9.

       The state cabinet will decide Wednesday (Oct 13) if it will allow interstate travel in line with the rest of the country.

       The state has allowed inter-district travel across five zones since Oct 1.