Chong Chieng Jen
KUCHING (May 30): Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak welcomes the announcement from Coordinating Minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin that Sarawak will be allocated 350,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine per week starting June with 4.4 million doses by end of August.
Its chairman Chong Chieng Jen said this would mean that Sarawak will be the first state to complete the national vaccination programme in Malaysia and that the Sarawak government does not need to purchase vaccines on its own.
In order to achieve this target, he said the vaccination process and standard operating procedures (SOP) must be simplified and made more accessible to the people.
As such, he urged the government to adopt the proposals of the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations, Malaysia.
This include distributing the vaccines to all private clinics and allow the private general practitioners (GPs) to administer the vaccines at their respective clinics.
“(Another proposal) is to allow walk-in vaccination without having to first register with MySejahtera and wait for the computer programme to allocate the time and places for the vaccination,” he said.
Khairy had said in Kuching on last Friday (May 28) that the Covid-19 Immunisation Programme in Sarawak will be accelerated to ensure that the state is fully vaccinated by August, before the next state election is called.
He had also said this was necessary as Sarawak was required by law to hold its state polls within 60 days should the Emergency end on Aug 1.
To achieve the target, Khairy gave assurance that vaccines would be fully supplied by the federal government to inoculate the targeted 2.2 million people in the state by August.
He also said large-scale deliveries would start next month, with an estimated 380,000 doses in the first week of June and subsequent weekly deliveries until 4.4 million doses were supplied by the end of August.
In addition, Khairy said new vaccination centres would be opened in Sarawak, including in-situ vaccination centres for factories and plantations, to achieve a minimum rate of 45,000 jabs a day.
“We will also increase vaccination through private clinics and hospitals. Currently, 23 private clinics and five private hospitals have started giving vaccines.
“We will increase this to 39 private clinics and seven private hospitals. If needed, we can add more private clinics, ” said Khairy during a press conference as part of a working visit here.
He added that mobile outreach teams would be deployed to longhouses and villages in rural areas so that they would not be left out from vaccination.