LABUAN – A total of 2,593 schoolgoing children aged 16 and 17 in the duty-free-island here have begun to receive Covid-19 jabs today in preparation for schools' reopening on October 3.
Labuan Health Department director Dr Ismuni Bohari said the vaccination exercise will be implemented at the two existing vaccination centres (PPVs) at the Kompleks Darul Kifayah and Labuan Matriculation College halls.
“As we are moving towards 100% population herd immunity against Covid-19, we must not leave out schoolgoing children in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
“This is also our efforts to mitigate the possible spread of Covid-19 among students and teachers in schools due to reopen next month,” he told Bernama today.
The vaccination exercise will run for four days in the first phase which will give priority to schoolgoing children before focusing on out-of-school children.
Dr Ismuni said the second phase for 8,225 schoolgoing children aged 12 to 15 will begin next week and run for two weeks.
“We will also accept walk-in students at the PPVs for those who might have been overlooked and were not listed in the first phase,” he said.
On August 15, Education Minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Md Jidin said schools will reopen on October 3 in stages under the National Recovery Plan starting with students in their examination years namely Form 5 and Form 6.
Labuan has 17 primary schools and 10 secondary schools, with 99% of the teachers fully vaccinated. – Bernama, September 11, 2021
