MMA: Ramped-up vaccination welcomed but what about high-risk migrants?

 

It was announced yesterday that the government has set a new target of fully vaccinating all adults in Malaysia by October this year amid ramped-up vaccination efforts, but the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said the country is still lagging behind in vaccinating undocumented migrants.

“The Health Ministry and the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) have done well in increasing the vaccination rate; however, we are still far behind in vaccinating undocumented migrants,” MMA president Dr Subramaniam Muniandy said in a statement today.

With an estimated two to three million undocumented migrants nationwide, who are mainly employed in the construction, manufacturing and plantation sectors, he said undocumented migrants have been identified as a high-risk group due to their living conditions.

There are more transmissible variants of Covid-19 in the country now, he said, and hundreds of undocumented foreign workers can be infected if any one of them is confirmed positive with the Delta variant, for example.

If such a scenario were to happen, Subramaniam warned that the hospitals may not be able to cope.

This is why undocumented migrants must be inoculated as quickly as possible, he said.

“It is a known fact that Covid-19 infections are recurring among migrant workers due to their living conditions, hence the most practical solution would be vaccinations,” he said.

As such, the MMA urged the government to engage with foreign embassies and the various human rights NGOs concerned in reaching out to the undocumented migrant population in Malaysia.

Subramaniam said these undocumented migrants must be given the reassurance that they will not be harmed by the authorities after coming forward for their vaccination.

He brought up the idea of granting an amnesty again to get undocumented migrant workers and their employers to cooperate with the authorities.

“There is no doubt that enforcement is important in addressing the issue of illegal migration, but we are in a time of crisis where vaccinating the population is a more immediate need,” he said.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday said all adults in Malaysia are expected to be fully vaccinated by October under a new immunisation target set by the government to stem the recent surge in Covid-19 cases.

This fast-track approach to the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) includes boosting the capacity for vaccination rate to 500,000 doses per day to tackle the emergence of new variants of the virus which are more vicious.

On July 16, NIP coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said the Home Ministry will be tabling a “much delayed” cabinet paper this week for a decision to be made on a framework to vaccinate undocumented migrants including refugees.

Previously, Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin had insisted it would be “impossible” to administer vaccines to individuals who are undocumented, as there would be no way to keep track of their status here.

He had said this in defending the ministry’s stand to launch large-scale crackdowns against undocumented migrants amid the pandemic, with the option to either be deported or legalised to work here. - Mkini