Govt to discuss free vaccination for foreign workers, expatriates

KUALA LUMPUR: The Special Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Committee (JKJAV) will discuss whether to vaccinate foreign workers and expatriates for free to effectively curb COVID-19 outbreaks.

JKJAV co-chairman Khairy Jamaluddin said the cabinet has asked the committee to make a recommendation on the matter in a couple of weeks.

Khairy who is also the Science, Technology, and Innovation Minister said the discussion will involve the Home Ministry, Human Resource Ministry and Foreign Ministry.

“The principle is very simple, we need to vaccinate foreign workers to make sure they are safe to make sure we are also safe.

“The more people get vaccinated, the safer we are, if we were to only vaccinate Malaysians without vaccinating foreigners, it is still at waste because we will not achieve herd immunity,” he said in a press conference here today.

Khairy said the measures were important to encourage employers to ensure their employees get vaccinated while achieving the goal of vaccinating as many as they could.

-- BERNAMA