SIBU, Aug 18: A total of 10 homeless individuals have been inoculated against Covid-19 after a special vaccination programme aimed at such individuals was carried out.
Sibu Crime Prevention and Community Safety Division head DSP Ariffin Bahar said the programme, which ended on Monday night, said they would continue with the programme soon as there are still six homeless individuals who they could not locate.
“We have successfully vaccinated 10 homeless people during the programme. We learned that there are six more who we could not locate and it is very likely that we will continue with the programme to vaccinate these six as we want all of them to receive the vaccine,” he said.
DSP Ariffin added that the homeless must be vaccinated as they are usually found in crowded places around town.
“If they are not vaccinated, we fear that they will get infected or infect others,” he said.
He stressed that it was a strenuous task to vaccinate the homeless as some of them acted aggressively and wanted to challenge the vaccinators.
“The homeless are not aware of the vaccination programme as they lack the knowledge. This caused some of them to be aggressive when approached. We have no choice but to apply force when vaccinating them as they were not cooperative,” he said, adding that the police were assisting the authorities with the vaccinations, along with the Health Department and Sibu Welfare Department. — DayakDaily
