The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) said people who were vaccinated by medics from the Ministry of National Defence should not be worried if they had not received Covid-19 vaccination cards.

RCAF Deputy Commander-in-Chief Ith Sarath, who oversees the military component of Cambodia’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign, said the production of vaccination cards was actively underway at the Institute of Health Sciences.

He said the production team had produced more than one million cards and had already distributed them to around 800,000 people.

“The vaccination teams from the defence ministry were responsible for the campaigns in Phnom Penh and the provinces of Preah Sihanouk, Koh Kong, Kampong Speu, Takeo, Svay Rieng, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey. Nearly three million people were vaccinated.

“The ministry has been working hard to produce these vaccination cards for everyone. We expect that they will all be ready in the near future. So far about 1.2 million cards have been produced. Now we’ve just received a production machine that can make 100,000 cards per day. We know we have about 1.5 million cards left to make, so we can estimate that we will spend about 15 more days producing them,” he said.

According to Sarath, the distribution of vaccination cards would be done free of charge just like the vaccinations were. He said if people encounter anyone who demands money for the card, they can report it to the ministry of justice or health for legal action.

“The issuance of this card to the army, our citizens and foreign residents is highly beneficial to everyone. It goes without saying that they did their part in stemming the spread of Covid-19 to protect lives,” Sarath said.

According to the health ministry, as of August 17 Cambodia had vaccinated more than 8.5 million people – or 85.23 per cent of the targeted adult population of 10 million – and 32.25 per cent of the 12-17 age group of nearly two million.