KUCHING: Parents and guardians can now bring their children who have yet to be vaccinated to selected vaccination centres (PPV) on a walk-in basis starting from Saturday (March 5).
Deputy Director of the State Health Department (Public Health) Dr Rosemawati Ariffin disclosed that among the PPVs involved are Dewan Suarah Sibu (Sibu, Kota Samarahan Health Clinic (Samarahan) and Bintulu Health Clinic (Bintulu).
Referring to the statement by Deputy Health Minister I Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali on March 3, she said parents and guardians can bring their children to get vaccinated without an appointment at selected PPVs.
“This is in line with the strategy to expand coverage of the vaccination in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Kids (PICKids).
“However, we do encourage parents and guardians to call the selected PPV first before bringing their children to get their vaccination,” she said in a statement on Saturday (March 5).
Dr Rosemawati pointed out that Sarawak is still implementing PICKids using the school-based approach to target students in schools, kindergartens and nurseries as well as increasing the walk-in vaccination at selected PPVs in stages.
She stated that the implementation of PICKids through the school-based approach has been very encouraging thus far.
“A total of 46,475 or 25 per cent out of the 185,900 children who were not registered on the MySejahtera app were given the Covid-19 vaccine at school. Moreover, a total of 906 or 70.8 per cent out of 1,279 schools have been visited for PICKids.
“The state is targeting 100 per cent schools to be visited by the end of the second week of March,” she said.
Commenting further, she said the PPV outreach programme conducted by health personnel from the Ministry of Health (MoH) and private medical practitioners to rural and remote areas in Sarawak will be continued.
“This is also an effort to ensure that children in the interior will have access to the vaccine,” she said.
Since the implementation of PICKids in Sarawak from Feb 3 to March 3, a total of 150,927 or 52.8 per cent out of 286,000 children have been successfully vaccinated.
