LOW vaccination coverage may turn states like Kedah and Sabah into Covid-19 virus hotspots again, experts said.

They said that cases were rising again in states like Kedah, Sabah and Johor but that the vaccination process there was not up to speed.

They pointed out that these states were also facing a shortage of vaccine supplies.

Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association president Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar said such a low vaccination coverage could push some of these states into becoming virus hotspots.

“There are a lot of cases in Kedah, Sabah and Johor and the vaccination coverage is low,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“Full vaccination is one of the important elements in this pandemic,” he added.

He noted that some states were also facing a shortage of supplies.

Zainal also attributed the rise in cases to sporadic infections, clusters linked to factories and social events, the Delta variant, and breakthrough infections among the vaccinated population.

According to the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply, Sabah remains the state with the lowest vaccination coverage, as only 29.3% of its adult population, or 807,499, have completed two doses as of yesterday.

Kelantan was second to last with 34.4% or 425,868 people, and next in line were Kedah and Johor at about 36%.

Comparatively, Labuan (90.6%), Sarawak (84 %) and the Klang Valley (81.3%) were the top three in terms of full vaccinations.

Universiti Putra Malaysia medical epidemiologist Associate Prof Dr Malina Osman also called for vaccination to be expedited in these left-behind states.

“I hope the vaccination programme can be executed as soon as possible in the affected states to avoid a situation similar to the one faced by Selangor recently,” she said.

Sabah state government spokesperson Masidi Manjun said recently that the number of Covid-19 cases in Sabah was expected to rise, until more people were vaccinated.

“In a situation where the virus is already in the community and easily spreading, we are racing to catch up… to vaccinate everyone who is eligible to be vaccinated at an immediate rate.

“This means that new cases will continue to be in high numbers until more people get the vaccine.

“Cases will only start to decline when we manage to vaccinate the population at a significant percentage level,” he was reported as saying.

Target reached

Late last year, Sabah and Kedah were virus hotbeds accounting for a bulk of the cases on the national tally. The spike in Sabah was also attributed to the state election while the Sivagangga and Tawar clusters contributed to the surge in Kedah.

While the Klang Valley has been a virus hotspot, with an average of 6,000-7,000 cases a day for several weeks now, some states have also been recently reporting over a thousand daily cases.

However, some of these states have lower vaccination coverage compared to their counterparts.

As of August 20, the seven-day average for daily Covid-19 cases in Sabah was 2,140, which is the second highest in the country behind Selangor, which reported 6,626 cases.

Kedah, on the other hand, reported an average of 1,824 cases with an incidence rate of 80.44 while Sabah’s incidence rate was 52.89.

Kelantan reported an average of 1,214 cases while Johor saw 1,454 cases. These were the other two states that were among the lowest in vaccination coverage.

The incidence rate for Kelantan was 61.94 while for Johor it was 37.03

An incidence rate refers to how quickly the virus spreads in a population.

As of yesterday, about 54.3% of the adult population in Malaysia had been fully immunised with two doses.

With this, Putrajaya had fulfilled its target of immunising 50% of the country’s adult population against Covid-19 by Merdeka Day, with Labuan (90.6%), Sarawak (84.1%) and the Klang Valley (81.3%) achieving the three highest rates of full vaccination.

Sabah remains rooted to the bottom with only 29.3% of its adult population being fully vaccinated, while Kedah has a rate of 36.3%, Johor 36.1% and Kelantan 34.4%. – August 23, 2021.