Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal – File photo
KOTA KINABALU: There are still no plans to make polio vaccination mandatory for the children of certain Sabah Temporary Pass (PSS) applicants, said Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal.
Although a three-month-old male infant from Tuaran, Sabah was confirmed to have contracted polio – 27 years since the disease was eradicated from the country, Shafie assured the people that the state government is not taking the disease lightly and confident that polio can be contained in the state.
“We have to go to the root of it. We cannot just simply produce a policy, and procedures to ensure (the issue is contained) based on the race and language (of the persons involved),” he said during a press conference held after the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) integrity and anti-corruption talk launch at the Sabah State Administrative Centre (PPNS) here today..
Shafie was asked on whether the state would make polio vaccination compulsory for PSS applicants’ children in the future since the mother of the three-month-old male infant hailed from the Phillipines.
“It doesn’t go by the race and by the people from which country. We shouldn’t be confined to such perceptions in life,” he added.
Malaysia reported its first polio case in nearly three decades on Sunday, after a three-month-old three-month-old male infant from Tuaran, Sabah was confirmed with the disease on Friday.
The resurgence of the highly infectious viral disease in Malaysia was announced by Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
Noor Hisham said lab tests by the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that the virus has a genetic affiliation with the polio virus that was traced in the Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) case in the Philippines. – end.