Step aside, anti-vaxxers.
The government is looking into making it compulsory for all school students to be vaccinated, following a rise in the number of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Bernama reports that the Education Ministry is currently in discussion with the Health Ministry over the matter.
At the moment, there is no rule to make it mandatory for all school students to be vaccinated, Deputy Minister Datuk P. Kamalanathan reportedly said.
“It is a proposal we are studying. We have to take a lot into consideration but I think it is an important matter. The student’s health is a very important matter,” he was quoted as saying in response to two fatal diphtheria bacterial infection cases.
A recent report by the New Straits Times‘s Tharanya Arumugam quotes medical experts as blaming the anti-vaccine movement for the reappearance of diphteria, which had “virtually disappeared in Malaysia”.
Family Medicine Specialists Association of Malaysia president Dr Norsiah Ali was quoted as saying the number of parents who rejected vaccinations for their children have increased from 470 in 2013 to 1,054 as of May last year.
“Following this, there had also been an increase in the number of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Dr Norsiah told the daily.
According to the report, diseases such as measles increased from 235 cases in 2014 to 539 last September; pertussis from 497 cases in 2014 to 655 cases last year; and tetanus from 12 cases in 2014 to 22 last September.
Former MMA president Datuk Dr N.K.S. Tharmaseelan told the NST that vaccine was given free at all government-run health clinics, while in the private sector, these vaccines should cost below RM100.
Last Saturday, a seven-year-old girl reportedly died from diphtheria — a bacterial infection that could have been prevented with immunisation — in Malacca while in Kedah, a two-year-old boy died on Wednesday, believed to be due to the same infection.
Both children had reportedly not received vaccination against diphtheria.
