Dr Manimalar Selvi Naicker, a lecturer at Universiti Malaya, said there were “remote” threats, which meant the affected country had secure borders, and “proximate” threats, which meant the country had porous borders.
She questioned Putrajaya’s response to the outbreak in the Philippines in mid-September, asking if the government considered it a remote or a proximate threat.
“If it was classified as a remote threat, then what steps were taken to seal the border for high-risk individuals from Sept 19 to ensure that the threat remained remote?
“If it was classified as a proximate threat as its borders were porous, why was an outbreak response like that of Papua New Guinea not initiated immediately?” she asked.
Manimalar said Papua New Guinea had a similar outbreak in June last year, prompting the country to bring in its first batch of oral polio vaccine (OPV) 12 days later and to conduct mass vaccinations 24 days after the outbreak.
“Papua New Guinea seems to be less well developed than Malaysia, so the response time for Malaysia would be far shorter,” she told FMT.
Recently, Deputy Health Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye said Sabah had been on “high alert” since polio broke out in the southern Philippines, following claims it was ill-prepared to prevent the virus from spreading to the state.
Lee said the health ministry had marked Sabah as a high-risk area and did what was necessary to prevent an outbreak of the virus there.
A three-month-old Malaysian boy from Tuaran was detected with polio on Dec 8, making it the first case in the country since 1992. Malaysia has been declared polio-free since 2000.
Manimalar said it was possible that a vaccine-derived polio virus had developed in the region, adding that the ministry should have anticipated the potential of such an emergence.
“The first reported case in the Philippines was on Sept 19. The fourth case was on Nov 4 and the eighth reported case was on Nov 25, so, a galloping outbreak was at our doorstep.”
She said the government must ensure there was sufficient money to vaccinate citizens and foreigners for “herd immunity” and also for the maintenance of equipment needed in the event of an emergency outbreak.
She also stressed that it was Putrajaya’s job to ensure the country’s borders were secure enough in the possible threat of infectious diseases like polio, adding that it was not enough that citizens were getting vaccinated.
“Infectious diseases do not recognise porous national borders when people move to and fro unhindered,” she said.
Manimalar reiterated that the boy who contracted polio should be adequately compensated as he caught the disease while he was “on schedule” with his vaccination, but was surrounded by unvaccinated non-Malaysians, while the authorities were aware of the outbreak in the Philippines.