The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy said it supported the call by health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah for parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated under the government’s programme.
“We are equally concerned about the increasingly aggressive online campaign mounted by anti-vaxxers in Malaysia spreading pseudo-scientific information, anti-vaccination messages, creating fear, advocating distrust of healthcare practitioners and disparaging the national immunisation programme,” its chief executive Azrul Mohd Khalib said in a statement.
He said it was alarming to note that the health ministry had recorded a 892% increase in measles cases within a five-year period. In 2013, there were only 195 cases of measles but in 2018 there were 1,934 cases.
Most of the adults and children involved had not been vaccinated, he said.
“It is tragic and heartbreaking to learn that there were 22 cases of pertussis (whooping cough) and even several cases of diphtheria in 2018, which resulted in the death of infants.
“These could have been prevented. Pertussis and diphtheria are vaccine-preventable diseases covered under the government’s immunisation programme. A newborn gets vaccinated for both diseases within the first six months of her life.
“We are hearing of an increase in the number of parents choosing to place their kids in harm’s way by refusing vaccination and depriving them of immunity and protection, and making them vulnerable to possible infection from these diseases,” said Azrul.
He noted that each year, the government invested around RM130 million in its national immunisation programme which protects hundreds of thousands of newborns and infants.
Yet, he said, according to health ministry statistics, the number of parents refusing to vaccinate their children had increased three-fold in recent years. There were almost 2,000 cases of vaccine refusal in 2016.
“The actual figure is expected to be even higher as these figures are only from the public healthcare sector.
“The campaign by anti-vaxxers promoting reliance on unproven traditional remedies, alternative treatments such as homeopathic remedies, pseudoscience, prayer and luck as bona fide vaccine alternatives, has resulted in a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as mumps, measles and diphtheria.
“This, as health ministry data has shown, has resulted in children losing their lives.
“The science and evidence are clear. Vaccines prevent disease. Vaccination saves lives.”