KOTA KINABALU: The number of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines administered in Sabah will slow down due to a global supply issue, says state Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.
He said the manufacturers had been hit by production issues and this has disrupted supplies to the state,” he said on Friday (Aug 27) when asked about rescheduling of appointments for people supposed to get their second Pfizer dose.
“It is a production problem and it is affecting nearly the whole world,” he said.
Many who turned up at the vaccination centre (PPV) in the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) for their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine had their appointments rescheduled.
A message from the SICC PPV said only appointments until noon on Friday (Aug 27) were still valid, while those after that were rescheduled to Sept 2-10.
Second Pfizer jab appointments scheduled from Aug 28 to Sept 2, were rescheduled to Sept 3-10. The SICC PPV, one of the largest in the states, operates from 8am to 5pm daily.
Masidi said Sabah received 516,170 vaccines of other types, including the single-dose CanSino and Sinovac types this week.
“The total for August so far is 1,414,020, but CanSino vaccines will continue to arrive in small batches,” he added.
Some of the CanSino vaccines are being used for people in far-flung islands in the east coast as Sabah tries to speed up its vaccination drive as daily cases exceeded 3,000 over the past three days.
The vaccinated rate in Sabah lags behind other states in the country with slightly over 30% of the targeted 2.84 million vaccinated, while about 51% have received the first dose of either Pfizer or Sinovac vaccines.
