BAGAN SERAI – Parents have been told not to worry about the side effects of vaccines given to teenagers aged between 12 and 7 in this country under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) for Adolescents.
Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine administered to adolescents had not produced any serious side effects so far.
“The risk from vaccine injection is very low, with benefits far outweighing risks; in fact, no such cases (adverse side effects) have been reported in this country.
“Studies conducted overseas show that the percentage of adolescents who suffered inflammation of the heart muscle and tissue after vaccination is very low,” he said at a press conference after visiting the vaccination centre at SMK Abu Bakar Al-Baqir here today.
He said the ministry was targeting to have 60% of students vaccinated by November and 80% before the end of December this year.
He said 681,853 of the 2.5 million students in the country had received their first dose while 108,935 had completed their vaccination as of yesterday.
“This means that 26.9% have already received their jabs from the programme’s launch until yesterday and 4.3% have been fully vaccinated,” he said.
He said Labuan had the highest vaccination rate among students, with 76.7% for the first dose and 6.4% for the second dose.
Sabah had 65.3% for the first dose and 7.2% for the second dose, while Sarawak had 37.7% for the first dose and 6.9% for the second dose.
Meanwhile, Noor Azmi said the Health Ministry welcomed the proposal for MySejahtera to notify users 30 minutes after check-in to remind them to check out.
He said it was a good idea as many users forgot to check out on their MySejahtera apps. – Bernama, September 25, 2021
