“The prime minister was very happy to see our vaccination facilities and the number of vaccinations done, as well as the efficiency of our vaccination programme,” said Uggah, who is also the SDMC chairman.

He said during the committee’s discussion with Muhyiddin, who is on a two-day official visit to Sarawak, the SDMC showed the prime minister its readiness to conduct the vaccination programme all over the state.

According to him, more than 1.2 million Sarawakians or 66.7% of the entire 2.8 million population of the state had already registered for the vaccination.

“We appealed to him (prime minister) for Kuala Lumpur to speed up the supply of the vaccines to Sarawak because Sarawakians are ready to receive the vaccines,” he told reporters after accompanying Muhyiddin on his visit to the vaccination centre at Stadium Perpaduan in Petra Jaya, here, today.

Also accompanying the prime minister during the visit were Sarawak chief minister Abang Johari Openg, deputy chief minister Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, state local government and housing minister Sim Kui Hian and Sarawak health director Dr Chin Zin Hing.

Uggah said the Sarawak government was also pursuing its own initiative to buy the vaccines to complement the supply from Putrajaya with Sim and his team now pursuing the matter and are already in touch with the relevant manufacturers.

He added that the Sarawak government had always recognised the role played by the media as frontliners and was now working to enable media personnel to be given the Covid-19 vaccination just like other frontliners.