JOHOR BARU, June 2 — Three Pakatan Harapan (PH) lawmakers today urged the federal government to study the lack of Covid-19 vaccination centres in the state’s rural areas.
In a joint statement, PKR’s Pasir Gudang MP Hasaan Abdul Karim, DAP’s Pekan Nanas assemblyman Yeo Tung Siong and the party’s Skudai assemblyman Tan Hong Pin urged the government to address this.
“Pagoh has about 80,000 people. Yet, it also has no vaccination centres to date.
“Bukit Gambir has no vaccination centres and the multi-ethnic mid-sized town has about 40,000 people served by four government clinics in the vicinity,” they said.
They noted both Pagoh and Bukit Gambir were hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic since last year.
“According to the daily updates of the respective district health office, Mukim Jorak and Mukim Grisek still have 354 cases and 181 cases, respectively.
“Unfortunately, several people have died. The surge in cases pushes everyone to register for vaccines. They want to be vaccinated now,” they said.
They noted that 1.5 million of the state’s 3.6 million residents have registered for vaccines but only 26 centres have been announced for all of Johor.
“That translates into approximately 50,000 people or 100,000 doses of vaccine per vaccination centre in Johor,” they said, urging the government to increase the number of vaccination centres urgently.
They said the problem most affected senior citizens who were more likely to have difficulties with modern technology than younger generations.
Earlier, it was reported that Covid-19 cases are on the rise again in Malaysia with the Health Ministry recording 7,703 new cases today, a jump of 589 more cases from yesterday’s 7,105.
This brings the total number of infected in the country to 587,165.
