KOTA KINABALU, Sept 22 — With national statistics showing that Sabah is still lagging behind in terms of its vaccination rate, the state government said that in reality, the actual number of vaccinated Sabahans is higher because they were inoculated in West Malaysia.

Spokesman for the state’s Covid 19 issues Datuk Masidi Manjun said that a significant number of Sabahans — thought to be at least 200,000 — were living in peninsula Malaysia but were not part of the state’s statistics.

"For example, we have given food baskets to some 171,963 Sabahan households in West Malaysia. Many of them have already been vaccinated. This means, the percentage of vaccinated Sabahans is higher than what the data is showing,” said Masidi here today.

He said that the Statistics Department registered some 2,758,400 adults in Sabah, and some 59.4 per cent have been vaccinated so far.

"But if, say, 200,000 Sabahans in West Malaysia are already vaccinated, then the actual percentage of Sabah’s vaccinated population is already far higher than the official data,” he said.

He said that Sabah is on good footing and on track to achieve its target of getting 60 per cent of its total adult population vaccinated by this month, and 80 per cent by next month.

Today, some 49,717 people received their Covid-19 vaccination, comprising 29,809 adults and 19,908 teenagers.

Cumulatively, 1,614,771 people, or 59.4 per cent of the registered adult population is inoculated.

Another 144,248 teenagers, or 33.8 per cent of the registered teenage population have also received their vaccination.

Sabah is, however, still far behind other states but is trying to catch up with the national average through various strategies including walk-in vaccinations, rural outreach programmes, and working with the private sector.