KUCHING: The federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry (Motac), Sarawak Motac and other agencies have set up the first Tourism Sector Industrial Covid-19 vaccination centre (PPVI) in the country.
The PPVI, which is also a collaboration with the Sarawak Tourism Federation (STF), Ministry of Health (MoH) as well as Timberland Medical Centre, began operations on June 24 at the Association of Churches Sarawak building, Jalan Stampin here.
It is targeting to vaccinate 2,000 tourism industry players in the city until this Sunday (June 27).
Similar vaccination programmes for tourism industry players will also be carried out in other parts of the state such as Sibu and Miri.
Sarawak Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who was at the PPVI on Friday (June 25), said the vaccination programme was specially carried out for the tourism industry.
“On the first day of the programme, 321 people were vaccinated.
“Today (June 25), we target about 500 people, while for the next two days (June 26 and 27), it will be 600 people.
“I believe that with such a vaccination programme for tourism industry players, this will add to the number of those vaccinated (in other PPVs) in Sarawak and Malaysia.”
He hoped that 80 per cent of Sarawak’s population would be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity by August.
“We all know that there is a big possibility that the Emergency ends in August and if it is not extended, we have to prepare for the state polls.
“God willing, we can reach a level where the Election Commission (EC) will feel that it is safe for us to hold the polls, and the people will not feel scared or worried,” said the Asajaya assemblyman.
Meanwhile, federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said the tourism ministry both at federal and state level aimed to ensure that as many people are vaccinated.
“At the federal level, there have been calls for Parliament to reconvene as well as calling for the Emergency to end so that the state polls can be held.
“Therefore, we want more people vaccinated so that herd immunity can be achieved as soon as possible.
“For the vaccination programme here (Kuching), we targeted 2,000 people, and we will continue this in places such as Sibu and Miri. In the smaller towns, the vaccination programme is carried out as usual.”
