SIBU, June 18: The stateless people residing in rural Kapit are not left behind in the State Covid-19 vaccine rollout as some have already been inoculated via the ‘inject first, register later’ initiative.
Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia) Rajang Branch chairman Bill Jugah was happy and relieved that their voice to push Covid-19 vaccinations for stateless people or undocumented persons, who cannot register to receive the vaccine through MySejahtera app without proper documents, have been heard.
Sadia Rajang Branch had on May 25 issued a statement to extend assistance to help these stateless people register for vaccination.
“There were stateless people in Kapit who had been jabbed through the ‘inject first, register later’ approach initiated by the State government.
“These stateless people who had being vaccinated did not inform me but I heard that after my video clip had gone viral on the plight of stateless people who could not register for vaccine due to the requirement of documents, the government had taken note of it,” he said when contacted today.
Bill commended the ‘inject first, register later’ initiative by the Sarawak government as the process would allow even stateless people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 since they did not meet the requirements to access the MySejahtera app.
“With this automatic process, the stateless people in areas like rural Kapit could now just walk to the mobile vaccination centre where an outreach team has been assigned to get their vaccination.
“No document, no problem. They can just walk in to receive the vaccine,” he added.
On a separate matter, Bill informed that he had been invited by the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Malaysia to participate in a virtual meeting to discuss matters on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the stateless community.
“From there, they want to find ways to mitigate the issue. So they also want my feedback,” he shared. — DayakDaily
