KAPIT, June 10 — Dwellers in remote rural areas in Sarawak need not have to worry about registering themselves for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme as they can now just walk in to the vaccination centre and register after getting their jabs, said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg today.
He said the state government is aware of the hardship faced by people in rural areas such as in the Kapit Division to register themselves either via the MySejahtera app or manually through the Resident and District Offices in order to be immunised.
“This (walk-in method) will expedite the vaccination process of the people in Sarawak,” he told a press conference after visiting the vaccination centre (PPV) at Dewan Sri Balleh here.
According to him, walk-in vaccinations would only apply to people living in challenging rural areas in the state while urban folks would still have to follow the present procedure for registration prior to vaccination.
He explained that dwellers of longhouses can come to a nearby a vaccination centre set up by a mobile vaccination team in their area to get vaccinated according to a schedule set for them.
Abang Johari said, a total of 16 mobile teams will be dispatched for the vaccination programme in Kapit district, 20 in Bukit Mabong and two teams each in Song and Belaga districts.
The teams will be travelling to the remote areas by land and river apart from using helicopters via the Flying Doctor Service, all depending on accessibility to the areas.
“This is a very challenging task as Kapit is bigger than the state of Pahang and many people dwell in the remote areas,” he said, adding that other challenging areas that needed such mobile teams to be despatched are Baram areas in Miri, Limbang/Lawas, and some parts in Sri Aman.
The vaccination of 96,723 eligible recipients including those carried out by static teams at 32 PPVs in Kapit Division had started this month and is expected to be completed by August with to date, 8,662 people having been vaccinated.
The chief minister said the division will receive 16,680 doses of vaccines per week until the completion of the vaccination exercise.
Earlier, he had attended a briefing on Kapit Rural Areas Immunisation/Vaccination Programme Action Plan by Kapit Resident Nyurak Keti before presenting Sarawakku Sayang Food Aid for the division.
He also visited the Kapit Field Hospital at Dewan Masyarakat Melayu before proceeding to check on a roadblock site at Km 2.5 Kapit-Song Road. — Bernama
