KUCHING, Feb 3: About 15 per cent of Sarawakian parents ‘disagree’ with having their children vaccinated against Covid-19.
According to Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, the survey was taken from the Sarawak Health Department’s recent public survey about parents’ reception to the National Covid-19 Adolescent Immunisation Programme for Kids (PICKids).
“Another 25.3 per cent of the parents are ‘unsure’ about the vaccination while 59.7 per cent agree to it.
“The main reasons why the respondents ‘disagree’ or ‘unsure’ about it are due to worry about the complications, concern about the vaccine safety, and want to be given the advantage of choosing the type of vaccine,” he told reporters after launching the State Level National Covid-19 Adolescent Immunisation Programme (PICK) for Kids held at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) Clinical Research Center (CRC) Auditorium, here today.
Uggah, who is also Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, pointed out that for PICKids, the vaccine that is being used is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children which has been approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) and it has a much lower dose than the adult dose.
He said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children is able to protect children from Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C) and the long-term effects of a Covid-19 infection.
“This allows them to socialise safely outside of home and in the place where they study, at the same time reduces the risk of transmission among children who are not eligible for the vaccine,” he added.
Meanwhile, Minister for Public Health, Housing and Local Government Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian urged all Sarawakian parents to get their children vaccinated.
“One of the reasons why we want to vaccinate the children is because the children have this MIS-C, in which the inflammation not only targeted certain parts of the body, but the whole body.
“Even though Covid-19 is milder, but the MIS-C can caused children to be very severely infected,” he said.
During the programme, a total of 30 children received their Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
As of Feb 3, about 272,500 (9.6 per cent of the population) Sarawakian children aged between 5 to 12-years-old are eligible for vaccination.
Also present were Deputy State Secretary Datu Ik Pahon Joyik. — DayakDaily
