KOTA KINABALU: The arrival of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Malaysia has brought fresh hope to the country’s struggle against Covid-19 and stop it from its continued spread.
This will help the country with its economic recovery and restoration, said former Communication and Multimedia Federal Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak today.
He said that following the arrival of the vaccines, the National Covid-19 Immunisation programme which is scheduled to start this week, will be carried out in three phases.
He said that the initial phase of the immunisation programme shall involve front liners comprising of health workers and non-health workers. The first phase is expected to be completed by April.
The second stage shall involve members of the community that are high-risk or vulnerable such as senior citizens aged 60 and above, those with heart diseases, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension (high blood pressure).
“This phase is from April to August and shall benefit 9.4 million people,” he said in his latest blog post.
Salleh said that the third phase is for people from 18 years old and above.
The vaccination under the third phase will be carried out from May, this year to February, next year.
“This phase is hoped to create immunity in the community and control the pandemic. God willing, if all goes well, this programme is expected to cover more than 80 percent or nearly 27 million of the people by the first quarter of 2022,” he said.
In the context of Sabah, Salleh said that the State government is targeting about three million of her people to be vaccinated by February next year.
He said that there are five methods to register for the vaccine, which is through the MySejahtera application, the Covid-19 Special Committee website on the vaccine supply (Jawatankuasa Khas Jaminan Akses Bekalan Vaksin Covid-19), by calling the hotline, manual registrations at public and private clinics and hospitals as well as by cooperating with the State Government to help register recipients including senior citizens.
Nonetheless, the process will need to cooperation from all parties such as the Federal government, State government, government agencies, members of the opposition, village chiefs, Village Development and Security Committee and the people of Sabah, he said.
This is the time for the people to show their unity and put aside political differences to ensure the safety and recovery of all from this calamity, he said.
“As Usukan assemblyman, I will give my full commitment, cooperation and assistance so that the programme will benefit the people of Usukan.
“Aside from assisting the National Security Council to get the names of vaccine recipients for the second and third phases, we will also, through the SSK Centre, help the people by disseminating latest information and help those in need of logistics to be transported to the vaccination centres.”
