Dr Annuar Rapaee
SIBU (Feb 15): A total of 63.5 per cent of 11,579 respondents of an online survey conducted by Assistant Minister for Education, Science and Technological Research Dr Annuar Rapaee agree to receive the Covid-19 vaccination when it is rolled out.
He told The Borneo Post that as of 6pm today, only 9.5 per cent disagreed with the use of vaccine, while another 26.9 per cent were still undecided.
Dr Annuar said those who are on the fence about the vaccine could be because they were adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude to see if their friends or relatives develop problems after getting the vaccination.
“Whatever news they heard about the ‘side effects’ of the vaccine – it could be just an exaggeration. They should see it from a scientific point of view. As far as what I have read about this vaccine, especially the one made by Pfizer, the side effect with the most concern is anaphylactic shock (severe allergic reaction).
“But this happens within 15 to 30 minutes after the vaccine been administered. The minor side effects include pain from the injection, fever and body ache – these are usual for anyone who had been vaccinated.
“It is important for people to realise the effectiveness of the vaccine where the efficacy is at 95 per cent. In other words, it not only prevents one from getting the disease but also severe infection (from the disease). It is most important for people to understand that vaccination is our only hope to end this pandemic,”
In this regard, he stressed that it was imperative for health workers to explain to the people the importance of vaccination and to dispel any unfounded notion about possible side effects.
The Nangka assemblyman stressed that the government’s target was to ensure 80 per cent of the population in the country was vaccinated.
He pointed out this is because the vaccine is only administered to those above 18 years old, whereas there was no evidence that the vaccine would be effective for those below that age because there has been no research done among those below 18 years old.
Additionally, the government wanted as many people to be vaccinated as possible to build up the herd immunity against the disease.
“My message is very clear, we want the vaccination to be carried out as soon as possible, as fast as possible and on as many people as possible.
“If you look at countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the number of daily cases have dropped even though not even half of their population has been vaccinated,” Dr Annuar stressed.
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