Malaysian researcher wins Japan award, her work may lead to vaccines for dengue and Zika

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian researcher Dr Moi Meng Leng (pic) has become the first foreign researcher to be granted the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) Award for her contributions in the regional control of infectious diseases.

Dr Moi, who is currently working with the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Nagasaki University, was accorded the award from the Japanese Prime Minister’s office in Tokyo on Thursday (Dec 24).

The award was for her contribution to the development of an antibody test to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of vaccines related to mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and dengue.

This is expected to contribute to the future development of vaccines against dengue fever in Malaysia.

The event is led by Ambassador Oka Hiroshi and Japan Graduates Association of Malaysia president Gary Tang and Japan Graduates’ Association of Malaysia president Gary Tang, hosted an online press conference to honour Dr Moi's achievement.

"Dr Moi has contributed to the regional control of infectious diseases by determining the epidemic dynamics of Zika fever, dengue and mosquito-borne diseases in South-East Asia through genetic phylogenetic analysis and developing countermeasures," said the Japanese embassy.

Dr Moi said that this was an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between Malaysia and Japan.

"This is also in hopes that we can bring development from Japan to Malaysia, particularly with problems affecting infectious disease such as dengue, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.

"We have developed a new antibody test which is useful for the development of a dengue vaccine and also other flavivirus vaccines such as Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses," she said.

Dr Moi said the antibody test has been brought to Vietnam and that she is also in collaboration with Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for research on dengue.

"We hope to bring the advancement of the technology between Japan and other parts of South-East Asia for the development of better therapeutics and vaccines," she said.

"The antibody test that we developed is to test whether the vaccine is safe and effective.

"With that, we hope we will test more vaccines and if they are safe and effective, we hope to bring them to countries in need," she added.

She acknowledged there were complications in a dengue vaccine that was proposed to be introduced in Malaysia, but added that the antibody test she developed is would avoid such cases.

"Before you introduce the vaccine to everyone, you have to test whether it is safe or not and whether it will cause severe diseases once you have the vaccine," she said, however noting that she does not foresee the dengue vaccine being introduced any time soon.

Dr Moi said she hoped that the technology used to develop Covid-19 vaccines could also be used to develop dengue and Zika vaccines.

"The antibody test we developed can also be applied for the study of coronavirus," she added, predicting that the results of Phase one and two of Japan's Covid-19 vaccine can be seen as early as the end of 2021.