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PETALING JAYA: Seniors and caregivers in long-term care homes are urged to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as they live in a high-risk environment for virus transmission at these facilities, health experts say.
Dr Jacqueline Lo Ying-Ru, Head of Mission and WHO Representative in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, said older people are vulnerable and at high risk of being seriously ill as they also suffer from existing medical conditions and comorbidities. , which result in higher death rates.
As such, Dr. Lo said that infection prevention control measures remain vitally important to prevent the introduction of the virus among residents in senior care facilities.
“Providing immunization to older people is important because they live in high-risk environments for virus transmission and for the development of Covid-19 clusters that involve residents and staff.
“Therefore, vaccination must be administered quickly and safely to residents and caregivers to keep them healthy and prevent serious illness or death from Covid-19,” he said during the Vaccination Plan forum for staff and residents of residential care centers for the elderly. which was broadcast live on the Facebook page of the Malaysian Research Institute in Aging on Saturday (February 20).
Dr. Lo said the vaccine provides hope to the elderly so that their family and friends can see them without fear and anxiety of putting them in danger.
The Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti), Datuk Ahmad Amzad Mohamed @ Hashim, said that since the start of the pandemic, almost 70% of deaths have come from people aged 60 years or older.
As such, he said that if there was an outbreak in a nursing home or nursing home, everyone there will need to be quarantined.
“I don’t think there is an operator (of nursing homes) who wants the safety of their residents to be threatened,” he said, adding that the outbreak in these institutions can occur very quickly due to nearby environmental factors, as well as difficulties. to practice physical distancing in these places.
The vaccines at these institutions, Ahmad Amzad said, were an effort to reduce the risk of infections there.
During the forum, the director of the elderly division of the Department of Social Welfare, Azmir Kassim, said that of the 17 care institutions for the elderly under his care, only three had reported an outbreak, with 120 cases out of 2,500 people in the centers.
Azmir noted that most of the cases occurred in red-zone areas such as Johor and Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.
“We found that most of the cases had originated with the caregivers because they were the ones who entered and left the place. This shows that the awareness of the caregivers must be improved, since it is not the fault of the elderly in the place, ”he said.
Although the outbreak of Covid-19 cases was not high among nursing homes, the senior deputy director of the family health sector of the division of family health development of the Ministry of Health, Dr. in the groups of high risk and were placed in confined areas.
Dr. Noraliza also expressed her concern about unregistered nursing homes (not registered with the Department of Social Welfare) for fear of missing the opportunity to be vaccinated.
He said the Health Ministry has a pre-registration for all nursing homes to register their residents and staff to be given the vaccine in the second phase of the national vaccination program.
“We are not penalizing anyone from unregistered nursing homes. We do not want to leave them behind. We want to provide them with the same services. Everyone should have the same rights to receive the vaccine,” he said.
Dr. Noraliza said that by registering the number of residents and caregivers, the ministry will be able to “set” the number of vaccinations necessary for them.
He noted that the last day for pre-registration for nursing homes will be February 28.
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