Labuan health department director Dr Ismuni Bohari said more than 10,000 children in that age group were eligible for vaccination.

“This vaccination exercise will be launched at Hospital Labuan. We hope to get a good response from parents,” he said today.

He added that his department might collaborate with the Labuan education department to speed up the exercise. Depending on the response, he said, the existing vaccination centre at Dewan Darul Kifayah may be used for PICKids.

An estimated four million children aged five to 11 nationwide are eligible to receive the vaccine. As of Feb 1, a total of 517,107 children have registered on MySejahtera.

Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin had previously stated that the vaccine would be given free of charge to all children in Malaysia regardless of nationality.

Khairy had also said that based on research data, the vaccine for children, which is one-third of the adult dose, would not cause serious side effects except for common ones such as fever.

The PICKids will be carried out on a voluntary basis and no restrictions will be imposed on unvaccinated children.