Diphtheria: Two new cases in Sabah, five deaths recorded to date

Two latest diphtheria cases took place in Sabah with one of them being fatal while the other is being treated at the hospital, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

With this development, the number of deaths due to diphtheria in Malaysia was five cases until today, meanwhile 13 cases were confirmed infected by diphtheria, he said in a statement here Wednesday.

He said the latest death was a three-year old toddler who did not receive diphtheria immunisation.

"The patient was confirmed suffering from diphtheria on Thursday (June 23) and died on Monday (June 27).

Meanwhile, the second case is a non-national five-year-old child who was confirmed suffering from diphtheria yesterday (June 28).

"Currently, the child is being treated at an isolation ward and is stable," he said.

Touching on the breakdown on the cases, he said three cases were detected in Melaka with one death, Kedah (six cases with one death) and Sabah (four cases with three deaths).

According to Dr Noor Hisham, all the cases in Sabah were reported to have happened sporadically (isolated) and were not related to one another, while the diphtheria cases in Kedah and Melaka were family cluster incidents.

In the meantime, Dr Noor Hisham said immunisation service at health clinics, hospitals and private sector clinics were reported to be getting encouraging response.

He said parents must continue to be committed in ensuring their children obtained immunisations according to schedule.

"Parents with children under seven years old are urged to check their children's immunisation appointments. If they missed their immunisations, they should go to the nearest clinic to do so. The health personnel would arrange suitable new schedules.

"Hopefully this good response will continue to ensure general and children's health are protected via cluster immunisations, and subsequently, vaccine preventable diseases will not be a public health problem anymore," he added.