SIBU, Aug 10: Against all odds, the industrial vaccination centre (PPV) covering 18 plantations and two sawmills has successfully administered 6,096 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines.
This public-private sector partnership vaccination programme was led by Pansar Holdings Berhad with assistance from Health Ministry-owned ProtectHealth Corporation.
It covered plantations and sawmills in Sibu, including those in Selangau, Mukah, Bawang Assan and Teku.
Pansar Holdings Berhad managing director, Pemanca Datuk Jason Tai when speaking to reporters at the closing of one of the industrial PPVs at University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) explained that the poor road conditions was one of the obstacles that they faced in running this mobile vaccination programme.
“It took us three hours to reach the plantations owing to the poor road conditions. Most of those helping the programme never thought that we had to take that long to reach the plantations,” he said.
The other obstacle was that they needed to ensure that the vaccines would still be in good condition due to the lengthy time taken to get to the plantations.
“The main issue was the travelling distance and we have to make sure that the vaccines are in good condition using the ice-box storage units,” he said.
Tai said initially they were thinking of using single dose vaccines such as CanSino due to the remoteness of these plantations. However, as such vaccines were not made available yet, they went for double-dose vaccines following the advice from the state Covid Immunisation Task Force (CITF).
“The whole team worked very hard. On the first day after setting up the facilities, they worked until 1am the next day. By then they had already administered 600 to 700 doses,” said Tai, who added that it took the team just five days to complete the programme. — DayakDaily
