Dr Kelvin Yii
KUCHING (April 5): Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii is urging the federal government and the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) to ensure immediate extra supplies of vaccine to Sarawak in light of the recent spike of Covid-19 cases in the state.
In a statement today, he said this is in line with the current government’s vaccine “ring-strategy” which was announced by the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NCIP) Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin early this year.
On Sunday, Sarawak recorded 419 positive Covid-19 cases which was the highest in Malaysia and a huge part of this was due to a spike in cases at Sri Aman prison which was similar to the drastic increase in positive cases that was previously detected in Semuja Immigration Depot last month.
“Fact of the matter is, the state government did not even have to specially request from the prime minister during his recent two-day visit here in Kuching to increase additional vaccines to Sarawak, as technically if based on the strategy set by the government itself, they would have automatically sent more vaccines to Sarawak as the sudden increase in cases in those centres activates the ‘ring-strategy’ protocol,” the Democratic Action Party lawmaker pointed out.
According to Dr Yii, a ring vaccination strategy targets area with a spike of Covid-19 cases such as prisons, detention centres or workplaces.
He said such strategy would run simultaneously throughout the phases of the NCIP that prioritises frontliners first, the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions next, before the general public.
He said Khairy was quoted by a health website on Jan 26 as saying that “If there’s a particular geographical location or particular cluster that has shown exponential spike in cases, then we’ll divert vaccinations there.”
“That is why in the case of Sarawak, by right, since last month, more supplies of vaccine should have been automatically sent by the federal government without the need for the state to make special request to the prime minister himself as it clearly fits the said ‘ring-strategy’ protocol,” Dr Yii said.
He said the federal government should have been more proactive and adhere to their own protocol to properly control the outbreak of such cases in high risk areas.
“We should not downplay the severity of the issue as while most of the cases are contained in the prison or detention centre, but the risk is that the officers and workers that are exposed in that area, runs the risk of bringing the virus back to their home or even their community.
“The possible infected family members can also bring the infection to their community unknowingly as most cases we have observed were asymptomatic, thus increasing the possibility of local transmission within that said community,” he added.
As such, Dr Yii called on the federal government and JKJAV to immediately send over additional supplies of vaccine to properly address the rising Covid-19 cases in those high-risk areas in Sarawak.
“By right, we should not be made to beg or even make special request and if they have been proactive, we would have received automatically as all these already falls within the set protocols and strategy,” he said.
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