Dr Afif said health department officers would visit the group of parents to counsel them. — Picture by KE Ooi

GEORGE TOWN, July 17 — A small group of parents in Penang have taken to the Internet to spread their anti-inoculation belief and the fear is growing, state health executive councillor Dr Afif Bahardin has said.

Though there are currently fewer than 50 people in the group, doctors are concerned as the parents’ steadfast belief has created a group of children without immunisation who are at risk of contracting highly contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, measles, mumps and diphtheria, which they could unknowingly spread to their peers through interaction at day-care centres.

“This anti-immunisation movement just started this year but it is a very serious matter as this small group parents from all over Malaysia are very active in spreading their belief through the social media,” he said in an interview with The Malay Mail Online.

A check on social media sites showed some parents arguing that the national immunisation programme as a “new world order to undermine Muslims”.

Others have blamed vaccination as the cause of syndromes like autism, which they ground on purported studies that have been expelled from medical journals.

“These parents are over-estimating the side effects of vaccination and under-estimating the consequences of no vaccination as it could cause an epidemic especially among newborns who are yet to be fully vaccinated,” Dr Afif said.

The national immunisation programme had greatly reduced diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, pertussis, diphtheria and meningitis and had reduced childhood deaths with only three out of 1,000 babies in the country dying from these diseases.

The state health department has identified the parents driving the anti-immunisation campaign, Dr Afif said, and learnt that a large number of them live in Kepala Batas and north Seberang Perai on the peninsula side of Penang.

He added that the group of parents consists of mostly educated professionals, even doctors, who had gathered their information from the Internet, most of which are published medical researches that have been debunked.

In a bid to sway the parents and arrest their belief from taking root, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state health department is embarking on a counselling programme for now, he said. Its officers have also fixed appointments to meet with the parents over July and August.

“Our officers will meet with them and counsel them to make them understand that the benefits of vaccination far outweighs the minimal side effects of the programme,” he said.

Dr Afif believes the officers will be able to convince and allay the concern over the halal status of the vaccination some of the parents have raised in their posts shared on social network sites, most popularly Facebook.

He noted that a fatwa had been issued in 1989, which declared the national immunisation programme to be halal.

Dr Afif had previously highlighted his concerns in the media and appealed to the Health Ministry to initiate an awareness programme to educate and allay the fears of the parents.

The Health Ministry issued a statement proclaiming that the national vaccination programme is halal and safe for all Malaysians shortly after, but the move did not seem to have made any headway with the anti-vaccination activists in Penang, who have continued their drive online.