Labuan all set for phase two vaccination

LABUAN: With just two days to go before phase two of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme begins, the Labuan vaccination committee has gone full swing in its preparations for the exercise.

The three vaccination centres for the exercise are all set to receive the 27,000 people targeted to be vaccinated under phase two, which is for people aged 60 and above, vulnerable groups with comorbidities as well as persons with disabilities (PwD).

Labuan Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) chairman Rithuan Ismail said the vaccination centres are Labuan Corporation's Multipurpose Hall, Membedai Health Clinic and Malaysian Armed Forces Hospital at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Membedai.

He said Labuan Corporation's Multipurpose Hall is expected to be fully utilised, with at least five channels to be opened for the exercise.

“One channel in the multipurpose hall has the capacity to inoculate 90 individuals per day, and we expect 450 people to receive the vaccine every day.

“If there is an urgent need, we will open five more channels in the hall to expedite the vaccination process, which is to commence simultaneously with the national-level exercise,” he told Bernama on Friday.

Rithuan said the vaccination exercise in Labuan has been well received.

“We hope we can expedite the vaccination exercise as currently the number of people registered (via MySejahtera) for vaccination stands at 40 per cent of Labuan's population of 103,000,” he said.

“Our committee members are working non-stop in their bid to get as many as possible to receive the vaccine through various campaigns,” he said.

Rithuan said the vaccination campaign has been expanded to all the five Ramadan bazaar sites and tithe (zakat) collection counters.

He said five mobile healthcare personnel would soon be going house to house to vaccinate senior citizens and people with disabilities.

Labuan has vaccinated all its 2,340 frontliners as of today, with the remaining second layer to receive the vaccine in stages.

The Labuan-level National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme was launched on Feb 27, a day after the arrival of 4,680 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Labuan Ferry Terminal from Kota Kinabalu.

Labuan Health Department director Dr Ismuni Bohari said Labuan is expected to complete the three-phase vaccination exercise in October, ahead of the schedule of February 2022. Bernama