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PUTRAJAYA (Bernama): The administration of four doses of the polio vaccine for infants continues in government health facilities under the National Immunization Program during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period, says Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The director general of Health said that the administration of the vaccine to infants of two, three, five and 18 months will follow strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) taking into account the importance of immunizing infants and children to prevent disease. .
“During MCO and conditional MCO, health clinics are open for immunization. Parents are urged to continue taking their children to health clinics for immunization during the MCO period,” he said during his daily press conference on Wednesday (Nov 18).
Dr. Noor Hisham said that as of June of this year, immunization coverage for the polio vaccine given in a combination of five sessions for children across the country was 95.6 percent compared to 98.4 percent. percent for the same period last year.
“There was a break in follow-up vaccination administration during the OLS as parents were anxious about Covid-19 exposure when taking their children out,” he said.
When asked about the polio vaccination campaign in Sabah, he said that since the Philippines reported polio cases in September 2019, actions to detect polio cases in the country, including in the state, had increased.
Dr. Noor Hisham added that four cases of polio have so far been confirmed in the Sabah lab.
He also said that the polio vaccination campaign in Sabah, which began on November 27 last year to November 16 this year, saw a total of 820,135 children under the age of 13 who received two doses of the bivalent vaccine against polio regardless of nationality.
It also said that 737,936 children under the age of 13 have received two doses of the monovalent oral polio vaccine across Sabah, it said.
Dr. Noor Hisham added that 24,297 children under 13 years of age received two doses of bivalent oral polio vaccine during Labuan’s polio immunization campaign that ran from June 11 to November 16.
“I went down to the ground to see the vaccination administered to the children of Malaysians and non-citizens in Sabah. The positive impact (of the campaign) is that the last case was detected on March 10 this year,” he said.
Dr. Noor Hisham said polio case detection continued through the Acute Flaccid Paralysis Surveillance Program and a total of 115 cases were detected nationwide as of November 12, which have been confirmed as non-polio cases. – Bernama
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