Macau’s health services on Friday advised that the two-dose smallpox vaccination be given to health workers and “high-risk people,” including those who engage in “sexual acts that are abusive or with multiple sexual partners.”
Anthrax vaccination is free for resident residents. But for workers coming from abroad, including mainland China, two doses of the vaccine cost 3,460 patacas (392 euros).
“Who will be willing to receive the vaccine?“I asked Benedicta Balcon, a representative of the Migrant Workers Union of the Philippines Green Party.
According to official data, the average monthly income of Macau’s working population was 17,900 patacas (2,026 euros) in the second quarter of this year.
But both Balcon and the head of the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union in Macau, Yusa Wari Yanti, estimate that domestic workers currently receive between 4,000 and 6,000 patacas (between 448 and 679 euros) a month in Macau.
“It is practically impossible to spend a full salary on the vaccine. In addition to food and accommodation expenses, almost all of us send money to our families.“Yosa highlighted.
Macau had 181,108 workers without resident status at the end of June, accounting for 26.4 percent of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s population, according to data from the Public Security Police Corps.
