Cambodian students volunteer at vaccine sites

PHNOM PENH-Choeng Senglim, a Cambodian medical student at a university in China, says she is thrilled to be able to help inoculate people in her home country against COVID-19 as Cambodia sees a spike in new cases.

Senglim, a first-year student at the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province, has joined other Chinese-educated doctors and medical students in vaccinating people at an inoculation site in Phnom Penh.

The 28-year-old student says she and other medical professionals volunteered to administer the COVID-19 vaccines, following calls from the ad hoc committee for COVID-19 vaccination. The volunteers had been trained by veteran doctors before being deployed to the inoculation sites.

"I'm proud to work with other medical professionals during this vaccination drive because I want to help protect our people against this highly contagious disease," she says.

Senglim says she has no hesitation in volunteering for this task, saying that medical students are future healthcare providers and must be courageous.

"When I chose this profession, I already knew that I would face such a situation or a similar situation one day. I'm ready to challenge it. If we don't do our job, who will do it on our behalf?" she says.

"This is my first experience, and I will never forget it."

Cambodia launched a COVID-19 vaccination drive on Feb 10. So far, around 1.3 million people in the priority groups have been vaccinated against the virus, a government report shows.

Sroy Sopheaktra, a fresh graduate with a bachelor's degree in clinical medicine from the Guilin Medical University in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, says the vaccination drive gave him an opportunity to serve people and help his country fight against the disease.