Sarawak to complete second, third phases of Covid vaccination programme in March-Aug this year

0

State Disaster Management Committee Chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas (left) and Dr Sim on their way to a recent Covid-19 press conference. – Photo by Chimon Upon

KUCHING (Feb 17): The Sarawak government aims to roll out the second and third phases of the Covid-19 vaccination programme simultaneously for almost two million people this year, Housing and Local Government Minister Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian revealed.

He also revealed last night that the state government wants to vaccinate all foreign workers in the state, including those here illegally.

In a Facebook post, Dr Sim disclosed that the first phase of the vaccination programme would be from the end of this month until April for 97,000 frontliners.

He said that the second and third phase would be from the end of March to Aug this year, for 929,000 people in high risk groups and 992,000 people above 18 years old respectively.

Dr Sim said Sarawak would work closely with the Health Ministry on the roll out of the vaccination programme in the state, which would officially be launched at the Stadium Perpaduan in Petra Jaya on Feb 27.


He disclosed that the Pfizer-Biontech Covid-19 vaccines would arrive from its factory in Belgium from Feb 25 followed by weekly air flight shipments until the end of March.

“We want to help Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri Sarawak (Federal agency) roll out as soon as possible, as fast as possible to as many people as possible.

“Our strategy is to leap from current Containment Phase to Vaccination Phase, bypassing the horrendous numbers of positive cases and deaths related to Mitigation Phase as seen in West Malaysia and Sabah,” said Dr Sim.

“In view of Covid-19 to longhouses and our resources including the health care not as soon as West Malaysia, we want to speed up and complete all 3 phases of free vaccination for more than 2,019,413 Sarawakian by August 2021 rather than national Vaccination program of February 2022,” he reiterated.

Dr Sim said to ensure that the programme is a success, there factors were require: ‘access’ to as many vaccines as possible, ‘acceptance’ whereby 70 per cent of Sarawakians have to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, and ‘assistance’ as it was the largest programme of its kind in the state with two million people and this would require cooperation as well as support.

While he also revealed that the state government aimed at vaccinating all foreign workers in the state, he did not provide any information as to how this would be achieved.

“The Chief Minister wants all legal and illegal foreign workers in Sarawak to be vaccinated in order to protect fellow Sarawakians,” he said.

The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin recently is expected to reach over 80 per cent of the population or 26.5 million people by February next year.

The programme would involve three phases starting with some 500,000 frontliners, consisting of healthcare workers as well as non-healthcare workers.

The second phase is expected to be implemented from April to August for high risk Covid-19 groups such as senior citizens above 60 years old; those with morbidities like heart disease, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, and the disabled, involving some 9.4 million people.

And in the third phase from May this year to February next year, adults ages 18 and above will be immunised.