Parents' refusal to allow children get Covid-19 jabs worrying - Dr Noor Azmi

BAGAN SERAI - Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali has expressed concern over the attitude of parents who refuse to allow their children to receive the Covid-19 vaccine as children are vulnerable to complications of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) if infected with the virus.

Therefore, Dr Noor Azmi asked parents to allow their children to be vaccinated because the percentage of children to get MIS-C symptoms after taking the Covid-19 jab is low.

"Currently, hospital admissions for children have increased as well as the admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and we are quite worried about this," he said at a press conference after officiating a domestic tourism programme for Gunung Semanggol subdistrict at Kampung Padang Lalang square here today.

Dr Noor Azmi said the percentage of children suffering from an allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) after receiving the Comirnaty vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech (Pfizer) and Sinovac was also reported to be very low.

According to him, 34.9 per cent of children in the country have been vaccinated under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids) from Feb 3 until yesterday.

Dr Noor Azmi called on parents to allow their children to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to protect them, adding that parents should not listen to fake news, instead they should listen to official news from the Health Ministry.

Dr Noor Azmi said a total of 412 vaccination centres have been opened so that parents can take their children to get vaccinated without having to wait for an appointment. - BERNAMA