KUCHING, April 23 ― The state government will propose its own system of registration for the Covid-19 vaccination programme involving those in the interior areas without handphones to Putrajaya, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said today.

He said the state government will propose that those who are unable to register their names through MySejahtera do so using a single number of the district offices.

He said the district offices will then write down the names into MySejahtera.

"Once their appointments for vaccination have been fixed by Putrajaya and then forwarded to the state Health Department which then passes the name lists to the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).

"The committee will then pass the name lists to the district offices,” Uggah, who is also SDMC chairman, told reporters after visiting the vaccination centre at the Indoor Stadium here.

He said the district offices will then contact the individuals concerned on the appointment, venue, date and time of the vaccination.

"We have discussed with Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin on the difficulty of contacting those who have registered their names manually with the district offices.

"One of the problems with those who have registered with the district offices is that they do not have any handphone. Based on the system, if we don’t have the handphones it means we don’t have any data in the system,” he said.

Uggah said SDMC has encountered a number of problems with those from the rural areas who have registered their names with the district offices manually.

He said the respective district offices are also facing problems in trying to locate those who have registered their names in their areas.

"For example, in Sibu today, over 70 did not turn up for their appointment and they could not be contacted as well.

"This is something we want to avoid and whoever has registered, they should get the vaccination,” he said.

He added over 600,000 individuals in Sarawak have registered their names manually at the district offices and their names have been put in MySejahtera.

"If we depend on the appointment through MySejahtera, there will be a lot of complications for us in Sarawak.

"For the state government, we want the vaccination programme to be completed before the end of August.

"We remain to maintain that target, but, of course, that target is depending on the supply of vaccines, but this might not be sufficient so we need to work out a more aggressive approach to reach the people,” he said.

"At the moment we have been able to register 266,197 eligible individuals out of our target of about 960,000,” he said.

"This is rather low and we want to reach out to as many eligible individuals as possible and will have the opportunity to be vaccinated,” he said.

He said at the same time, SDMC wants the people to come forward and register their names for the vaccination either at the district offices or the health centres.