Dennis briefing Penan community leaders on the Covid-19 immunisation programme atLong Latie Penan Service Centre recently.
MIRI (April 21): The implementation of phase two of the Covid-19 immunisation programme for the rural folk in Ulu Baram is now hanging in the air after it was rescheduled twice, Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau revealed.
He said the Health Ministry (MoH) had set a target of 8,000 registered recipients in a district for the vaccination to be carried out but in rural areas like Ulu Baram, it was difficult to achieve that number.
“At first, I was informed the implementation for the second phase Covid-19 immunisation programme for my constituency was scheduled for April 5 to 9. Then, the date was postponed to April 23 until 27.
“But I’m very frustrated that this new date has now been postponed to another date which will be set later,” he said when contacted by The Borneo Post today.
For the freshest news, join Borneo Post Online’s Telegram Channel
Dennis said he did not know when the second phase of the immunisation programme, which is for the elderly and people for comorbidities, would now be carried out.
“It is very hard for my constituency to achieve the ministry’s 8,000 target registration to enable the ministry to run the vaccination programme,” he said.
He also said that it was very difficult to organise the rural folks for vaccination due to the lack of telecommunications.
Dennis said he understood that there were standards of practices that MoH had to follow but he strongly felt that the ministry’s 8,000 target per district was not applicable to those living in remote areas in Sarawak.
“I hope MoH will look at this matter on a case-to-case basis based on local situation, where certain areas might not be the same as others such as the very rural areas in Sarawak like Telang Usan constituency, Mulu constituency and some parts under Marudi constituency.”
Dennis pointed out that the rural people who have signed up for the Covid-19 vaccine are eagerly waiting their turn to be vaccinated.
Therefore, he urged MoH to speed up the delivery of the vaccines for the rural folks who have registered for the programme.
“MoH should consider the appeal done by our disaster committee for the vaccines to be delivered to rural Baram. By considering rural areas in Sarawak as special cases, I believe that we will be able to achieve the herd immunity target set by the government to immunise 80 percent of our country’s population.”
The post Ulu Baram Covid-19 vaccine roll-out in doubt due to MoH requirement, says Dennis appeared first on Borneo Post Online.