SARAWAK will vaccinate all eligible residents in areas subjected to the enhanced movement-control order (EMCO) before their lockdown is lifted.

This is to determine if it could reduce the number of recurrent of cases in the same community, said adviser to the State Disaster Management Committee Dr Sim Kui Hian.

He said the trial started last night with 358 villagers of Kg Sinar Budi Baru, on the outskirts of Kuching, in Sim’s Batu Kawa constituency.

He added that the process to vaccinate all 358 villagers was completed in four hours.

Sim, who is also the state’s housing and local government minister, said those vaccinated were already registered in the MySejahtera system and tested negative for the virus after their second polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

The disaster committee lifted the EMCO order for this village, which was put in place on June 9, yesterday.

An outbreak was traced to members of three families who had attended a post-Aidilfitri gathering.

In the ensuing active case detection drive that tested 38 persons, 19 were found positive for the virus.

“Hopefully this new approach of vaccinating before release from EMCO quarantine will reduce a repeat of cases in the same community,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

He added that it is a trial run of vaccination teams reaching to the people instead of the public going to vaccination centres to get their jabs.

Sim also said the vaccination centre (PPV) at the Spring shopping mall, which starts its operation, today could vaccinate up to 400 people a day.

The PPV is restricted to employees of some of the malls in the city and their management staff.

He said it would be scaled up to vaccinate 900 people per day. – June 24, 2021.