Why Singapore Is Taking Vaccination Responsibility For Migrant Workers

Last updated on March 17th, 2021 at 11:51 am

Singapore will now start to vaccinate its migrant worker force, a landmark decision in the safety and integrity of life of the outsourced workers. The migrant population has been the worst hit by the pandemic as they were left to fend for themselves.

Most countries did not provide them with protective gear or proper hygiene measures that could have prevented them from contracting exposure to Covid-19.

The vast rate of infection amongst the migrant workers can also be blamed on the way dormitories housing the foreign labourers were packed, making it easy for the virus to spread quickly. No wonder that the migrant settlements in Singapore became the biggest infection clusters during the peak of the covid-19 outbreak in the island last year.

Under its national immunization strategy, the Singapore government is now going to inoculate a group of 10,000 migrant workers living in the country’s five largest dormitories. Surprisingly, the migrant workers actually include a huge number of Indians that makes up for about 90 percent of Singapore’s Covid-19 tally, which stands at 60,046.

Finally, the Ministry Of Health (MOH) has started to believe that indeed the protection of their migrant work population is as much their responsibility as anyone elses. “Vaccination of migrant workers living in dormitories is thus part of our national Covid-19 vaccination strategy, all to protect Singaporeans and long-term residents,” a formal statement by MOH stated.

It is worth mentioning that Singapore has expressed its desperation for the need of migrant workers to get back on its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic. The construction and infrastructure sector is labour intensive and heavily dependent on migrant work force that flows into Singapore from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, and some other countries where labour is willing to move outside its country’s bounds to work. With economies gradually opening up after successful Covid-19 vaccines being made available, Singapore has its best interest in mind in helping the migrant population after all.