By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, May 28: A total of 587 media practitioners in Sarawak will receive their Covid-19 vaccination appointments in the first week of next month (June).
Kuching Division Journalists Association (KDJA) deputy chairman Zulazhar Sheblee who is the State media vaccination coordinator, said the good news has been confirmed by the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin (KJ) himself today.
“There is a total of 5,867 media personnel from 144 registered media agencies nationwide expected to receive the Covid-19 vaccines. Of that, 587 are from Sarawak.
“Therefore, I hope the media personnel in Sarawak will remain patient as the vaccination appointments will be issued in stages starting the first week of June,” he told reporters after speaking to Khairy during the latter’s visit at Stadium Perpaduan here today.
Zulazhar thanked Khairy for his efforts in facilitating and speed up the vaccination process for the media.
“Although the media were initially removed from the list of frontliners, KJ understood the nature of our (media) work and profession where we have to go on the ground to make news coverage and exposed to the risk of Covid-19 infection.
“It is our responsibility to disseminate information channeled by the government to the people especially on vaccination programme,” he added.
He also explained that the late media vaccination was due to a slight technical problem involving vaccine supplies that come in batches instead of lump sum.
On May 25, Khairy announced that the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) will schedule appointments to the 5,867 media practitioners nationwide once it has the finalised information of the namelist.
He said such a decision was in line with the efforts to protect those who are at the front line including teachers and media practitioners. — DayakDaily
