New polio case found in Sandakan: Health DG

The Health Ministry has detected a new case of polio involving an undocumented three-year-old boy in Sandakan, Sabah.

“The child has never received the polio vaccine since birth.

“The child experienced weakness in his left leg on Jan 18, 2020, and was treated at the hospital and is now in a stable condition.

“The case was confirmed to be polio by the World Health Organisation referral laboratory in Australia on March 5, 2020,” said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement today.

As of March 8, 2020, he said there have been four confirmed cases of polio in Sabah.

The four cases involve a three-month-old child from Tuaran, a three and eight-year-old from Sandakan and an 11-year-old from Kinabatangan, Hisham said.

Only one of the cases is still being treated in the hospital that is the three-year-old from Tuaran, he said, and the boy is in a stable condition with the aid of a breathing device.

Three of the four cases involve non-citizens who have never received the polio vaccine, he said.

The ministry is actively carrying out polio prevention and control activities such as surveys of sewage water and fecal samples to detect the poliovirus in certain areas, he explained.

During such activities, Hisham said they discovered a two-year-old undocumented child in Semporna who has the acute flaccid paralysis syndrome.

As her symptoms are very similar to polio, it was classified as polio compatible, he explained.

This Sabah polio immunisation campaign has been carried out since Dec 27, 2019 in stages and will be continued, he said.

Hisham said the campaign targets providing oral polio vaccines to all children below 13 years old throughout Sabah.

Up to March 8, as many as 517,038 children below 13 years old have been given the first dose of the vaccine whereas 206,972 children have received the second dose, he said.

“All parents in Sabah need to ensure their children aged below 13 years old receive the oral polio vaccine as stated.

“The oral polio vaccine is an additional polio vaccine in order to ensure the spread of the poliovirus can be stopped,” Hisham said.

He urged parents to also make sure their children receive the injections of polio vaccines according to the set schedule at 2, 3, 5 and 18 months old.

“If there are any children who missed their polio vaccine injections, parents are advised to go to any health clinics to reschedule the vaccine injection following the age of the child,” he advised.