Sabah govt won't issue IC to migrants who received vaccine in state

The Sabah government has no plans to issue identity cards (ICs) or citizenship status to undocumented immigrants who received the Covid-19 vaccine in the state, the state assembly was told today.

Chief Minister Hajiji Noor (above) said this was to protect the rights and interests of the Sabah people.

However, the state government will consider issuing identity cards and citizenship to natives who still do not have identification documents, he added.

He said this in response to a supplementary question from Ewon Benedick (Upko-Kedamaian) on the matter.

Recently, Deputy Home Minister Ismail Mohamed Said reportedly said the ministry would consider giving identity or citizenship cards to Covid-19 vaccine recipients in Sarawak and Sabah.

Meanwhile, State Community Development and People's Welfare Minister Shahelmey Yahya, to another question from Ewon, said Sabah received more than five million doses of Covid-19 vaccine since the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) was implemented.

Shahelmey, who is also the operations director of the State Immunisation Programme, said the vaccines comprised 3.38 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac (1.28 million doses), AstraZeneca (189,990 doses), and CanSino (180,000 doses).

The state will be getting an additional 2.89 million doses in September, he said, adding that the amount is sufficient to cover the vaccination needs of the state’s population who have not received the vaccine.

He said as of Tuesday (Sept 21), 59.4 percent of the adult population has been fully vaccinated, while 33.8 percent of adolescents in the state have received the first dose of the vaccine.

On vaccination for residents in rural areas, he said a total of 733 vaccination outreach programs have been implemented and 358,284 people have been vaccinated.

- Bernama

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