RURAL communities in the country must not be overlooked in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
While some effort has been made to reach these communities using repurposed trucks, more needs to be done, especially in interior areas in the East Coast states on the peninsula and in Sabah and Sarawak.
Access to some of these areas is extremely difficult, requiring several hours of travel along jungle trails and rivers with some having to spend hours in crowded vehicles just to reach urban vaccination centres.
The authorities need to consider any and all options to safeguard these communities against Covid-19 as contracting the illness in such inaccessible places would almost certainly be a death sentence.
Even during pre-pandemic times, the gap between urban and rural communities in terms of healthcare access was huge, what more in a global pandemic with limited resources to spare.
Vaccination has been rightly pointed out to be the only way out of the pandemic and no effort must be spared.
We have yet to see the Rural Development Ministry take a vocal stand on the issue and get the appropriate assurances from the Science, Technology & Innovation Ministry that rural areas will receive the necessary allocation of resources and vaccines.
NATHANIEL TAN , Coordinator, Projek Wawasan Rakyat (POWR)
