In a Facebook post today, Noor Hisham said Malaysia must increase its vaccine coverage first before considering booster shots.

“Administering booster doses to the fully vaccinated will not help control the spread of the Delta variant,” he said in a post on Facebook.

“What will control the spread of the Delta variant is vaccinating those who haven’t been vaccinated.

“No one is safe until everyone is safe.”

While vaccination rates in Labuan and the Klang Valley are as high as 92.8% and 86.9%, respectively, in terms of adult populations who are fully vaccinated, several other states are lagging far behind.

The states with the lowest vaccination rates among the adult population are Sabah (33.8%), Kedah (40.2%) and Kelantan (40.8%).

Noor Hisham’s call is aligned to that of World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who suggested on Monday that booster shots be delayed so as to prioritise raising vaccination rates in countries where very small percentages of the population have been inoculated.

“In addition, there is a debate about whether booster shots are effective at all,” Ghebreyesus was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Hungary became the first country in the European Union to allow residents to register for booster doses earlier this month, with more than 187,000 people receiving these shots so far.

Last week, the US announced that it would be offering booster shots for all Americans beginning from Sept 20, partly due to decreasing protection against Covid-19 and variants such as Delta.