Early vaccine jabs for the babies

SEREMBAN: From now, babies born in Malaysia will be given the first dose of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at the age of nine months and another dose when they are a year old.

The Health Ministry has decided on this revised schedule under the National Immuni­sation Programme after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that Malaysia has become a measles endemic nation in the same league as China and the Philippines.

Prior to this, babies were given their first immunisation when they turned one and the second at the age of seven when they enrolled into Year One.

“The revised schedule will affect babies born after July 1, 2015,” said ministry director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a directive.

In 2003, Malaysia made a commitment to the WHO to become measles-free by 2012.

To achieve that, the Govern­ment adopted a schedule in which babies were to be given the MMR vaccines at the ages of one and seven.

“However, despite this, the number of babies under the age of one coming down with measles has been increasing,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said from 2011 to last year, 24% to 36% of measles cases involved babies who were less than a year old.

Of these, half involved babies aged between nine and 12 months.

Under the previous schedule, they were ineligible to get immunisation jabs.

Last November, it was reported that measles cases had tripled in 2015 compared with 2013.

The ministry made another shocking revelation that more than half of the measles victims in 2014 and 2015 had not been immunised.

Dr Noor Hisham said WHO had previously suggested that babies in measles endemic nations should be given their first dose when they were between nine and 12 months old. The second should be given when they are between one and two years.

He said babies born before July 1, 2015, would continue to be given the immunisations under the old schedule.

The vaccine jab is important as measles can cause severe lung infection and brain inflammation (encephalitis).