Did govt take steps to arrest spread of polio, asks pathologist

Injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccine was introduced in Malaysia in 2008. (AFP pic)

PETALING JAYA: A pathologist has questioned if Putrajaya took the necessary preventive measures to arrest the spread of polio to Malaysia after a three-month-old boy from Sabah contracted the virus, the first in 27 years.

Dr Manimalar Selvi Naicker, a lecturer at Universiti Malaya, said that when the polio outbreak was first reported in the Philippines in mid-September, it gave the Sabah government a “two-month headstart” to take preventive measures.

This was especially in view of the fact that the Philippines was close to Sabah, with its citizens shuttling between the two countries, and also the large population of illegal immigrants in the state.

She noted that Health Minister Dzulkelfy Ahmad had, a few days ago, said there were two possibilities of how the polio virus could have reappeared in the country – the virus either came via the Philippines or the infant’s family had travelled abroad.

“It would have been quite obvious to even the casual observer that a disaster was imminent in Malaysia if preventive measures were not put in place,” she told FMT.

Manimalar said one preventive measure was by administering Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).

The OPV strains produce a local immune response in the lining of the intestines and had been shown to be effective in preventing person-to-person transmission of the poliovirus.

She said even the World Health Organisation (WHO) had noted that the solution for all polio outbreaks was to immunise every child “several times with the oral vaccine to stop polio transmission, regardless of the origin of the virus”.

This was why mass OPV immunisation or other preventive measures should have been considered early on.

“The moment the Philippines declared an outbreak, this contingency measures should have been put in place,” she said.

OPV was given in Malaysia from 1972, and injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) was introduced concurrently in 2008. OPV was discontinued in 2016.

Manimalar said that if an internal review found that the response of the health ministry to the polio outbreak in the Philippines was delayed or had shortcomings, then it was only fair that the family of the child victim be adequately compensated.

“This is because polio will likely impact the child’s future,” she said. - FMT