A medical staff member administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a health personnel at Sunway Medical Center in Subang Jaya, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, on March 11, 2021. (Photo: Mohd RASFAN / AFP)
KUALA LUMPUR: Forty healthcare workers in Malaysia have tested positive for COVID-19 despite completing both doses of the vaccination, said health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on Saturday (Apr 17).
According to Dr Noor Hisham, nine of them were infected more than two weeks after having their second dose, while the other 31 workers were infected less than two weeks after getting the second jab.
Another 142 healthcare workers were infected after the first dose, while 244 workers who contracted the disease were not inoculated.
"It is clear that we still can be infected after completion of vaccination," said Dr Noor Hisham in a Facebook post on Saturday. "No one is safe until everyone is safe."
However, he also said that vaccinated healthcare workers had less severe COVID-19 symptoms.
"Although vaccine gives a glimmer of hope to fight against COVID-19, make no mistake that we can relax all the public health measures after vaccination,” said Dr Noor Hisham.
MORE THAN 438,000 VACCINATED
A total of 438,220 individuals have received both doses of their vaccine shots under the first phase of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme as of Friday, said Health Minister Dr Adham Baba on Saturday.
During the same period, 687,176 individuals received the first dose, bringing the total number of COVID-19 doses administered in the country to 1,125,396.
He said the five states with the highest number of recipients receiving the first dose were Selangor (97,416), followed by Kuala Lumpur (78,086), Sarawak (67,624), Johor (63,295) and Perak (56,295).
The five states with the highest number of recipients who had completed both doses so far were Selangor (63,126), followed by Perak (48,795), Sabah (43,033), Kuala Lumpur (38,642) and Sarawak (33,291).
Dr Adham said as of Friday, a total of 8,902,528 people, or 36.4 per cent of the population, had registered for the programme.
