Ministry to investigate claims of measles, chickenpox outbreak

The Health Ministry will investigate claims of a measles and chickenpox outbreak in Kuala Lumpur, said Director General of Health, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah when contacted by Astro AWANI today.

Claims of the outbreak surfaced when a team of health officials conducted an inspection on the vaccine cold chain at a clinic in the capital city.

Vaccine cold chain refers to a system of handling vaccines within a particular temperature range to ensure its effectiveness when administered to patients.

Concerns over the measles and chickenpox outbreak were raised by a medical officer, who declined to be identified, whose clinic had been visited by health officials two weeks ago.

“That’s what they told to us, and there’s even a team of nurses going to houses to check on children’s vaccine records.

“We suspect there’s an increased risk of infection around the area. They (health officials) have also activated the prevalent system to make sure they arrest the outbreak in this area,” he said.

The medical officer believes the inspection was conducted to ensure the vaccines for chickenpox and measles are at optimum levels.

"Cold chain is very important in vaccines because we need to make sure it stays in a particular temperature so that it will be optimal for a patient being given it.

"Basically, if the cold chain is broken, the vaccine is not optimal anymore. It can become either not beneficial or in one case when a chickenpox outbreak happened because the cold chain had been broken,” he said.

The health officials did not reveal the reason behind their inspection, but the medical officer said, based on his experience, the inspection was a standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.