KOTA KINABALU: Pharmacists in Sabah have appealed to the government for them to receive the Covid-19 vaccination in the early phase.
Sabah Pharmaceutical Society president Jemima Ho said the society has recently written letters to Health Minister Dato Sri Dr Adham bin Baba and Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar to request for community pharmacists and pharmacy assistants to be vaccinated in the early phase instead of phase 3.
She reasoned that community pharmacists are exposed to patients daily during working hours.
“Anyone who deals directly with patients should be given the phase 1 vaccination and community pharmacists are amongst them.”
After being vaccinated, she said pharmacists could then educate the public that the vaccines are safe and will augment the government’s efforts to increase vaccination awareness positively.
She said pharmacists can be a pool of influence to the public since the vaccine registration rates are low as of now.
“On an average we see 150 to 200 members of the public per day and there are around 2,800 pharmacies in Malaysia, including rural areas.
“The coverage is big.”
Since community pharmacists will be involved in phase 3 as vaccinator pharmacists, Ho said pharmacists should be vaccinated first to create immunity before they are involved in vaccinating many others.
“With community pharmacists being vaccinated, the risk of transmission to low immunity customers that walk into the pharmacies will be much reduced.”
Furthermore, she pointed out that there have been community pharmacists who have died from Covid-19 complications in other countries.
“Because of these few reasons, community pharmacists are requesting to be vaccinated early,” she stressed.
She added that pharmacists also encouraged the public to go for vaccination to create herd immunity and hopefully end the pandemic soon.
She said 80 percent of the population need to be vaccinated to create herd immunity.
“After vaccination, social distancing and wearing masks are still mandatory till herd immunity is formed.”
Ho welcomed members of the public with any enquiries regarding the Covid-19 vaccines to ask any pharmacies around the neighbourhood.
“The pharmacists are ready to serve and support the government’s initiative,” she said.
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