THE Malaysia Security Industry Association (PIKM) wants the authorities to treat security guards as frontliners and have them vaccinated quickly.

PIKM president Ramli Yusuff said guards had figured in many clusters since the Covid-19 pandemic exploded in the country.

He said it was a constant fear that unvaccinated workers would trigger more clusters as the outbreak continued. 

Ramli said an appeal was sent to the government in February to consider guards as frontliners to be accorded priority on the national immunisation campaign.

“The Health Ministry told us to advise our members to register individually on MySejahtera. 

“PIKM was hoping for the attention of the government but received no response,” he told The Malaysian Insight. 

Ramli said another appeal was sent on May 31, this time to the national immunisation programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

He said there were 900 security companies licensed by the Home Ministry to provide guards for various industries and government agencies. 

“Over 120,000 security guards work around the lock to ensure the safety of their clients, and this helps the police to keep society safe too.

“Most of the guards belong to the 25 to 60 age group and they have not been given preference for vaccination.”

Ramli said Nepalese security guards, who figured in clusters last year, were the most affected by the lack of inoculation.

He said based on information from their members, there were slightly over 100 guards who had tested positive since the first movement-control order last year and about 20 guards have tested positive since January this year. 

PIKM said that according to the Home Ministry’s data, there are about 29,000 Nepalese guards stationed nationwide.  

As for how many guards have been vaccinated to date, Ramli said they don’t have the figures but have advised their members to register via MySejahtera as proposed by the Health Ministry. 

“From daily communication with our members, we are getting requests to get the government’s attention for priority vaccination.

“This indicates that the bulk of guards have not been vaccinated. Also, we understood earlier that the government would bear all the costs for the vaccination.”

Guarding communities 

He said that an estimates 70,000 security guards are deployed at shopping malls, retail outlets, banks, other commercial places and residential complexes throughout the country.

Ramli said some were deployed at hospitals, schools and government-linked installations.

Ramli said the guards needed to be vaccinated because their daily interactions with the public in the course of their duties made them susceptible to infection.  

“The guards are the frontliners at all guarded premises and they are at high risk of being infected.

“They are there to ensure all visitors or shoppers (including staff) go through temperature checks and registration at entrances.”

He added that another important standard operating procedure is to ensure people entering and whilst within the premises maintain physical distance. 

“As such, we want the government to give priority to security guards to get vaccinated.” – June 23, 2021.