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Access, accessibility present challenges in vaccinating vulnerable people
While the government has been pushing to ease vaccine access for vulnerable groups, geography and physical infrastructure remain an issue in vaccinating indigenous communities and people with disabilities.
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A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on March 23, 2021 during a public vaccination program in Sanur, Bali. (Reuters/Nyimas Laula)
T
he national vaccine rollout remains mired in access and accessibility problems for people with disabilities and indigenous communities, say activists who have called on the government to ramp up coverage for vaccine recipients of vulnerable groups.
Buyung Tanjung, a cofounder of Yogyakarta-based disability rights group OHANA Indonesia, urged the government to step up vaccination for people with disabilities, including by ensuring that vaccination centers had accessible facilities.
“Special attention should be paid for people with disabilities [in vaccination sites] including ensuring that the sites are accessible [for the disabled people],” said Buyung in a webinar on Tuesday. He highlighted, for example, that vaccination sites should had sign language interpreters to help guide the disabled people through the inoculation process.
For recipients of indigenous communities, the sluggish vaccine rollout was primarily due to difficulty reaching the remote regions where they lived.
Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) secretary-general Rukka Sombolinggi said the group had received reports that many indigenous people were unable to get to the nearest vaccination point, which were still far from their villages.
Rukka said it would be more helpful for indigenous communities if the government provided COVID-19 vaccine services at the villages, while admitting that the communities’ remote locations presented a logistical challenge.
She also highlighted that indigenous communities were susceptible to COVID-19 hoaxes and misinformation, as they lacked access to adequate and reliable information, which could lead to vaccine hesitancy among these vulnerable communities.
