Malaysia's Sabah state says 20% of new Covid-19 cases are children below 12
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The Sabah minister in charge of Covid-19, Datuk Masidi Manjun, said out of the 287 new cases, more than 50 are children who were not yet eligible to be vaccinated.
PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
KOTA KINABALU (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Almost 20 per cent of new Covid-19 cases reported on Saturday (Dec 11) in Malaysia's Sabah state involved children under the age of 12.
The Malaysian government said in October that it was going ahead with procuring the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children.
The Sabah minister in charge of Covid-19, Datuk Masidi Manjun, said that out of the 287 new cases, more than 50 are children who were not yet eligible to be vaccinated.
He added that 54 infected people, or 19 per cent, were foreigners. The state hosts tens of thousands of workers and their families from southern Philippines and Indonesia's Kalimantan provinces.
"Out of today's total cases, 277 are under stages one and two," he said, referring to mild cases. He said only three cases were under stages three, four and five, the more serious stage of Covid-19.
"As for seven others, their diagnoses are still pending verification from the Health Department," he said.
Malaysia's Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said on Twitter in October that to ensure schools could reopen safely, other options such as procuring the vaccine made by China's Sinovac BioTech, would also be considered.
About 87 per cent of teenagers aged between 12 and 17 in Malaysia are fully vaccinated, government data on CovidNow showed on Friday.
Malaysia has also inoculated 78.1 per cent of its total population against Covid-19 by Friday.
Malaysia's total Covid-19 cases have stabilised at between 4,000 and 6,000 cases a day in the last few weeks, a sharp decline from the record 24,599 cases logged in a single day on Aug 26. The country reported 5,058 cases on Friday.
