LEMBAH Pantai Member of Parliament Fahmi Fadzil has called on the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) to immediately set up vaccine dispensing centres (PPV) in each state, specially dedicated to inoculate all media personnel.

He said with such effort, all media members could be vaccinated within a day.

“I propose that one PPV in each state be dedicated to immediately vaccinate all media personnel registered in the respective states.

“This way, all 5,000 media personnel can be vaccinated within a day,” he said in a Facebook post today.

In April, coordinating minister for the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) Khairy Jamaluddin said that journalists would receive their Covid-19 vaccine shots in May.

In the following month, he said some 5,000 media practitioners from 144 agencies would receive their vaccination appointments in the first week of June.

However, nothing ensued, leaving media members to start a campaign complaining about the delay in their vaccinations, which had been promised in April.

Members of the press started the #CucukMYPress and #VaccineforMediaMY hashtags on Twitter in an effort to get the government to live up to its commitment to vaccinate media practitioners.

Responding to the calls, Khairy said the media, including journalists and photographers, will receive their appointment dates starting Monday (June 7) and will start getting vaccinated from Wednesday (June 9).

Despite that, only a small number of media practitioners have been vaccinated to date.

Fahmi said the government must expedite vaccination among media members, urging that they be given equal treatment, without selected preferences.

 “I welcome the giving of the vaccine to media practitioners starting June 9. However, the number of 100 out of 5,000 media practitioners is still too small and slow.

“I urge the CITF to assure that all media organisations will be given the same immediate treatment, as well as ensure that vaccinations among media personnel are given fairly.

“There should not be a situation where only some media have received the vaccine, while there are other media that have not received it at all,” he said.

Fahmi also questioned the task force as to why media members were not given priority during the first phase, saying that media personnel were also front liners.

“They are part of the front line – they are the team that is in the field, recording and reporting all the news every day in our efforts to curb the spread of the Covid -19 pandemic and achieve herd immunity.

“Every time they leave for (news) coverage in a state where they have not been vaccinated, it becomes a risk to themselves, colleagues and even their families.

“The vaccination process for this group should have started during Phase 1 (February 24 to April 18) along with other frontline groups. I regret the government’s failure in this regard,” he said, adding that he wants an answer from the CITF as to why media personnel were not included in the first phase.

Fahmi also asked Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah to give an exact date for when all 5,000 registered media personnel will receive their vaccination. – June 11, 2021.