SARAWAK has opted to have the one-shot vaccine from CanSino for its people living in the rural areas, state disaster management committee chairman Douglas Uggah said today.

He said the Chinese vaccine is practical as “we do not have to make a second trip to administer the second shot” like what is required for Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine.

He said the state has requested 600,000-800,000 doses of the vaccine from Co-ordinating Minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin.

To date, 66% of those eligible to be vaccinated in the state have registered themselves, he said.

Sarawak has a two-system registration – one via the MySejahtera app and the other, manually.

These are basically people who live in areas that have no internet service. They have to travel to their Resident’s or district office to register themselves.

Meanwhile, state Health Department director Dr Chin Zin Hing said the South African variant of Covid-19 has not been detected in Sarawak to date.

He said genome tests conducted by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) laboratory in Samarahan have not come across the strain, officially known as the B.1.351, which is now found in clusters in Selangor.

Chin said as such, the Covid-19 vaccinations that are currently being administered in Sarawak are effective against the three variants found in the state.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said as of yesterday, 17 individuals have been found with the South African variant.

The cases are linked to clusters involving airport staff and factory workers.

The B.1.351 variant, first discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa in December, was first detected in Malaysia earlier this month.

The variant was reported to be more infectious. – April 15, 2021.