KOTA KINABALU, May 7  -- The polio immunisation exercise in Sabah, involving the administration of the monovalent oral polio vaccine (mOPV) that was supposed to have been carried out in April, has now been pushed forward to June. 

State Health director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi said the Sabah Health Department (JKNS) had implemented the Sabah Polio Immunisation Campaign (KIPS) for children aged below 13 since last December, and they were supposed to have received two dosages of the bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV) and two dosages of the mOPV.

“Our immunisation coverage, however, dropped slightly during the Movement Control Order period,” she said in a statement here today. 

Dr Christina said so far, a total of 681,161 children under 13, or 79.83 percent have received the first dose of the bOPV, and 43.2 percent for the second. 

She said JKNS has targeted a 95 percent immunisation rate to ensure herd immunity to control the spread of the disease among the community. 

Sabah recorded four polio cases last December in which two cases were reported in Sandakan and one each in the districts of Tuaran and Kinabatangan respectively. 

-- BERNAMA