THE Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) urged parents to seek advice from paediatricians if they are uncertain about vaccinating their children.
“We know of parents who are worried about adverse reactions from the COVID-19 vaccine and are hesitant to subject their children to it.
“Hence, we advise them to speak to either their paediatricians or family doctors for information before coming up with a decision,” said MMA president Dr Koh Kar Chai, in a statement.
Three days ago, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said there has been a 160% rise in the number of COVID-19 cases among children below 12 years old over the past week.
“A total of 6,524 Covid-19 cases were detected among children in the 5th week and it increased drastically to 16,959 in the 6th week.
“Of this, 4,242 children were between the ages of 5 and 11 in the 5th week while 10,796 cases involving the same age group were recorded for the 6th week.
“The point here is that there has been a rise in the number of paediatric cases which also includes admissions,” The Star reported him as saying.
Two days ago, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob stressed that the Government had never forced parents to register their children to be vaccinated through the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids).
“We discussed this in the Cabinet. There is no compulsion on the people, whether the third, fourth, fifth (dose), especially on children,” Bernama reported him as saying.
On that note, Koh concurred that the Government should not force kids to get vaccinated, calling Ismail Sabri announcement a laudable decision.
“But children aged 5-11 years of age is the last cohort that has yet to be vaccinated.
“And many parents are worried about clusters being reported from educational institutions and rightly so as there are reports of severe COVID-19 infection among children, albeit in small numbers,” he remarked. – Feb 20, 2022
