86.5% of prisoners vaccinated against Covid-19, says minister
Advertisement
A TOTAL of 60,760 or 86.5% prisoners had been vaccinated against Covid-19 by February 14, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs II Jonathan Yasin told Parliament today.
He said, according to statistics from the Malaysian Prison Department, a total 9,543 or 15.3% have not yet been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, he said as of February 23, a total of 16,869 detainees – of which 13,902 or 82.3% in Immigration detention centres – had received the vaccination, while only 2,994 or 17.7% have not.
“The Home Ministry has taken proactive steps to implement vaccination programmes for prisoners in prisons as well as detainees in detention depots,” he said.
“It proved when the vaccination programme was implemented in stages starting last year until it managed to reach a high number in a short period. It is also an initiative at respective state levels in collaboration with the Health Ministry,” he said.
Jonathan was responding to Ramkarpal Singh (Bukit Gelugor-PH) who asked about prison vaccination figures.
However, the minister did not specify if the vaccinations included first or complete shots as well as booster shots.
Nationally, Malaysia has administered 68.5 million Covid-19 vaccination doses to 25 million people. – March 23, 2022.