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Uggah confident Sarawak will meet target of vaccinating 2.2 mln eligible people by end of August

Uggah (centre), joined (from left) Miro and Henry, give their thumbs up as vaccine recipients gets inoculated by a nurse at the Bau PPV.

BAU (JULY 4):  Sarawak is extremely committed in ensuring the success of the last leg of its Covid-19 vaccination programne, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas today .

Although admitting this as ‘quite a tall order’, Uggah who is also the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, was confident that Sarawak would meet the target of vaccinating its 2.2 million eligible people by the end of this August.

He revealed that for this final leg, the state hoped to ramp up its vaccination to 70,000 doses per day in the coming weeks.

“We had even achieved 65,000 doses per day but yesterday we only did 47,679 doses. We are going to increase to 60,000 doses per day. So, we really have to catch up.

“As of yesterday (June 3), we have successfully vaccinated a cumulative total of 1.456,831 million.

“They comprised of 1.178,303 million vaccinees for their first dose and 278,528 for their second dose,” he told the media this after visiting the Bau’s Covid-19  vaccination centre (PPV) at the Fire and Rescue Department Academy here.

Uggah added on the whole, the state had achieved an excellent record in its vaccination operations.

He attributed this to the very strong sense of commitment, sacrifice and support from all the frontliners, the Health Department, the SDMC and the state administration as well as due to the support from the people and even the non governmental organisations (NGOs).

Despite this, he pointed out there would be the constant fine tunings to the existing mechanisms to render them more efficient and effective.

“We have set up many public, government hospitals and clinics, industrial and private hospitals and  clinics vaccination centres state-wide.

“We have the mobile teams to reach out into the interiors. We are also assisted by the military combat medic teams,”

Earlier on during the visit, Uggah was briefed on the vaccination progress by Bau District Officer Anielia Siam.

According to her, some 29,373 eligible people (or 61.4 per cent) in the district had been vaccinated.

Deputy Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Willie Mongin, Tasik Biru assemblyman Datuk Henry Jinep, Serembu assemblyman Miro Simuh, Deputy State Secretary Datuk Ik Pahon and Kuching Division Health Officer Dr Eunice Melissa  John were among those present.