KOTA KINABALU: A Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) scientist said he felt much more confident and safer after receiving his Covid-19 vaccination recently.
UMS Innovation and Commercialisation Management Centre director Dr Jidon Janaun said he had been waiting to get his vaccination since February.
"I would like to thank UMS… I just had my vaccination and feel very confident and safer now.
"(For researchers), we wanted the vaccine as fast as possible as there are numerous innovations that involve the community.
"We were worried and doubtful as the infection was so widespread. However, after this lockdown, we will be less wary to reach out to the people and the industry," he said when met at the varsity which is also being used as a vaccination centre.
For the initial stage, UMS would be administering 200 Covid-19 vaccination doses daily on weekdays with the help from 100 medical and non-medical volunteers.
Its vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Taufiq Yap Yun Hin said the varsity hopes to help the nation achieve herd immunity by roping in more staff for the inoculation programme.
He added the initiative, which is also part of the university's corporate social responsibility, is to boost the number of vaccinations, as Sabah recorded the lowest registration and rate of vaccinations.
"For now we are administering 200 doses and it will gradually increase to 1,000 doses daily. We are hoping to get more vaccines not only for UMS staff and students, but also for the public around here," he said, adding UMS was targeting to inoculate about 8,000 of its staff and students.
Apart from the vaccination, Taufiq added that UMS continues to complement the health authorities' efforts in battling Covid-19 through more testing.
Since last April, he added the varsity had conducted 40,000 Covid-19 tests.