SANDAKAN – Isolated from populated areas and having limited contact with outsiders, islander Mujinah Arindar could only wonder why the government was in a rush to give her the Covid-19 vaccine.
The 43-year-old always believed she was safe from the virus, as she lives in Kg Tronglit on Pulau Timbang, an approximately 30-minute boat ride from mainland Sandakan. There are only about 300 adults in the island’s population.
“I knew through the radio that the government was encouraging us to register for Covid-19 vaccination, but I felt that there was no urgency to it. We here are isolated from others, so I felt like we were safe from the virus,” she told The Vibes during an outreach programme by the Sandakan Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) on the island recently.
“Also, we did not know how to register for vaccination, and we have limited internet access.”
After the CITF team met her and explained why she should register for the jab, Mujinah agreed to it.
They convinced me that it is safe, and that I am not protected from the virus because some of us still go to town (Sandakan) and can contract the virus there.
“So, I registered for the vaccine, and got my mother to register for it as well. The officials provided manual registration for us, so I felt that there was no reason for me to refuse.”
It was not fear of the vaccine that delayed Mujinah’s registration, but rather, a lack of encouragement, which the concerned CITF officials duly gave her.
However, in the case of fellow villager Abu, he had heard all sorts of rumours about vaccination, which made him hesitate to sign up.
At a community information session during the CITF programme, he asked: “Is it true that the vaccination given to YBs (elected representatives) are vitamins, while the doses that will be given to villagers are (poison) that is fatal?”
Only after a detailed explanation was given to all those present that Abu registered for the vaccine.
Kg Tronglit is one of 13 villages in island settlements off the coastal town of Sekong in Batu Sapi here. These villages have an adult population of about 2,000.
Before the CITF outreach programme was conducted on June 17, only 28 people had registered for inoculation against the coronavirus.
However, within just one day, the programme handlers – including officials from the Health Ministry, Information Department, Sandakan Municipal Council and Sekong Community Development Leaders’ Unit (UPPM) – saw 626 registrations, or some 30% of the total adult population of the Sekong islands.
Uneasiness, lack of information
Sekong community development leader Hazulizah Mohd Dani said many villagers had little knowledge about the importance of getting vaccinated.
“When we first came here (a few months ago), the villagers rejected our offer to get them registered for the vaccine. They thought that because they live in an isolated area, the virus won’t reach them.
Some of them were also not confident about the content of the vaccine. Some questioned its safety, while others questioned whether it is halal.”
She said the lack of internet access on the islands also hindered villagers from getting the correct message from the government. On top of that, it is not easy to process registrations quickly without the MySejahtera app.
“That is why these island settlements make up a special case, and why we provide manual registration for them. I think our efforts are a lot more successful this time because we came as a group, and we distributed Covid-19 vaccination information kits to them.
We used the speakers at mosques and surau to ask them to come and register. We also went from house to house, to reach out to the families.”
Getting the village chiefs vaccinated earlier helped, she said, as many locals believed in the jab’s safety only after seeing that their leaders are fine following inoculation.
The CITF team was divided into four groups to reach out to as many villagers as possible.
Hazulizah’s own team included Sandakan health promotion officer Jounil Ekim, Sandakan information officer Aziz Abdul Karim and former Sekong assemblyman Datuk Samsudin Yahya.
“Believe me, my mother is fine after receiving the vaccine, and she is in a wheelchair. You will all be fine after vaccination. It does not even hurt,” she repeatedly told villagers when going door to door in Kg Upak.
No one in Kg Upak had registered for the vaccine before the team arrived. During the visit, almost 100 residents signed up.
The programme will continue today in other rural areas with limited internet access, including Segaliud.
Sandakan health officer Dr Johari Awang Besar said the programme is timely, given the district’s low vaccination registration rate.
He said the UPPM teams in each constituency are also reaching out to rural folk in their respective areas. –The Vibes, June 20, 2021
