New COVID-19 developments recorded in Southeast Asia

The Indonesian government is planning to vaccinate children aged 6 to 11 years old, while Cambodia has seen its daily cases dropping to minimal levels over the past 41 days.

Medical staff give a student a shot of COVID-19 vaccine in Blang Bintang, Aceh province, Indonesia. (Photo: AFP/VNA)
Medical staff give a student a shot of COVID-19 vaccine in Blang Bintang, Aceh province, Indonesia. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Accordingly, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccinations at the Indonesian Health Ministry, informed at a talk show that Indonesia plans to cooperate with schools to provide shoots of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine to children aged 6 to 11 years old.

COVID-19 vaccinations for children are expected to be more efficient if carried out in schools, she said, adding that the vaccination will use a single data vaccination system.

According to the spokesperson, Indonesia is targeting to inoculate around 26 million children of the age group, requiring at least 50 million doses of the vaccine.

As Cambodia moves towards reopening, it once again recorded its lowest daily COVID-19 case in an unprecedented run of 41 days of ‘new normal’ low case numbers. On November 10, the nation posted 65 new infections and five new deaths, bringing its total caseload and death toll to 119,292 and 2,845, respectively.

As of November 9, nearly 14 million people out of Cambodia’s 16-million population had been vaccinated at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Regarding Malaysia’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, the local Ministry of Health said that, as of November 9, about 97.6 percent of the adult population had received at least one dose of the vaccine, 95 percent of whom, approximately 22.2 million people were fully vaccinated.

The ministry's announcement also said that among adolescents (from 12 to 17 years old), about 86.5 percent had received at least one dose, of which 76.7 percent had completed the vaccination programme.

Malaysia is also implementing the booster vaccination campaign for fully vaccinated people.