KUCHING: The tireless efforts of all parties involved in enrolling residents to receive vaccinations from house to house have boosted the vaccine immunisation rate in Sibu.
This was stated by the coordinator of the mobile vaccine centre (PPV) for the Bukit Assek zone Councillor Joseph Chieng when met by the media on Saturday (July 24).
He said there was a decline in the Covid-19 cases in Sibu with only three cases reported today.
“I am surprised to see the small number of cases today. Sibu has never stopped registering a large number of cases since the emergence of the previous Pasai Cluster but after the vaccination programme has been carried out, there has been a significant drop in cases.
“One of the factors to this success is the involvement of many parties such as NGOs and the volunteers to help register the public to be inoculated with the vaccine.
“We are aware of the existence of the MySejahtera application but there are still many people out there who do not register through it.
“Therefore, we believe the mobile vaccination through manual registration is a contributor to the decrease in our positive cases,” he said.
Another contributing aspect is that Sibu residents are well aware of the importance of vaccination, he pointed out.
Manual registration should be continued and his team is actively doing house-to-house registration at this time, especially for residents in Jalan Tiong Hua, Jalan Tong Sang, and the surrounding areas, Chieng said.
Although such a way of registration is considered ‘traditional’, it is already showing signs of success and efficiency when many people have been vaccinated by PPV Mobile teams using buses over the past two to three weeks, he pointed out.
He explained that Jalan Tiong Hua, Jalan Tong Sang, and the surrounding areas were previously in the red zone areas but since the implementation of the manual registration, the number of cases there has dropped drastically.
According to him, more than 2,000 residents in the area have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
“Today, the Mobile PPV uses a bus stop behind Rejang Medical Centre (RMC) which will be operating until July 29 to give the second dose of the vaccine to the recipients there.
“The Mobile PPV, which started its operations on Friday, has so far vaccinated over 50 people on the first day,” he said.
He explained the programme which started at 5pm had run smoothly and that the public receiving the vaccination adhered to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that had been set.
“We hope Sibu can achieve the herd immunity as targeted. We will also continue to do manual registration from house-to-house on a daily basis to ensure all residents in Jalan Tiong Hua, Jalan Tong Sang and surrounding areas are vaccinated as soon as possible.
“As for now, the vaccination programme in Sibu is operating in full swing and we can register them with the Mobile PPV or any PPV here,” Chieng added.
