.jpg "Students wait to receive their Covid-19 jab at the Kinta Town Hall in Batu Gajah September 21, 2021. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Farhan Najib")
GEORGE TOWN, Oct 5 — The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for teenagers aged 12 and above in Penang is expected to complete in about five days, said Penang-Putrajaya Covid-19 coordinator Steven Sim.
The Bukit Mertajam MP is confident that Penang will be able to vaccinate the 130,000 teenagers in the state within five days.
As for talks that the Covid-19 vaccination centres (PPV) will be closed soon, before the teenagers have completed their second dose, Sim said he has discussed the matter with Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
“Yesterday, Khairy informed me that the PPV will remain open until all of the teenagers in Penang have completed their second dose,” he said.
Vaccination for teenagers above 12 years old started on September 23 in Penang and now, Sim said Penang is in the top five in the country in terms of vaccination rate for teenagers.
“When we began vaccinating teenagers last month, the vaccination rate in Penang was the slowest in the country, where on the first day, we only vaccinated 4,177 teenagers,” he said.
He said he had given the state Health Department the target of vaccinating at least 10,000 teenagers each day.
“Now, we are top five, or top six if we take Labuan into account, faster than many other states such as Sarawak that were given priority to start earlier before Penang,” he said.
As of October 3, a total 1.17 million people, or 85.5 per cent of the adult population, have received two doses of the vaccines while 95.9 per cent have received at least one dose.
A total 89,900 children aged between 12 and 17 years old, or 63.5 per cent, in Penang have received their first dose of the vaccine while 1,534, or 1.1 per cent, have received both doses.
