Sabah health director Christina Rundi said, however, the number of parents wanting their children immunised, especially in Tuaran, had increased exponentially since then.
Polio vaccination in Tuaran is now given for free to all children, including non-Malaysians, she said.
“The government is absorbing the cost of the polio vaccination programme. Non-Malaysians also do not have to pay for the polio vaccination although they still need to pay the fee for other types of immunisation,” she said.
Rundi was speaking to reporters after going on a walkabout to promote the smoking ban with Sabah Health and Wellbeing Minister Frankie Phoon at Gaya Street here today.
The usual practice of the ministry is to charge foreigners RM40 for registration and an additional RM40 for an immunisation shot, but this will depend on the type and schedule of vaccines.
Rundi said 59 children of migrants, aged between two months and 15 years, who had not received any immunisation had been given free polio jabs.
“We found that those who had defaulted on immunising their children were coming forward to get them the vaccinations,” she said.
She also dismissed the claim that pig DNA had been found in some vaccines.
She said the three-month-old boy from Tuaran was in a stable condition although he still needed breathing support. The department is still waiting for the test results of the stool samples from 20 individuals who were close to the patient.
Rundi said the department was also awaiting the test results of six samples gathered from people around the polio patient’s home.
She said six samples taken from a nearby treatment plant had come out negative for the polio virus.
Until Dec 14, she said, 1,553 people had been checked for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP).
Rundi also said additional vaccination for five-year-olds in Sabah would be carried out in stages starting from Tuaran to eventually cover other high-risk districts – Kota Kinabalu, Penampang and Putatan in the west coast, and Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Kunak and Semporna in the east.
The Tuaran case is the first polio case reported in Malaysia in nearly three decades. Malaysia was declared polio-free in 2000, after the last known case of the disease was reported in 1992.
This case came just months after the Philippines reported its first cases of polio since 1993 in September.