Materia Medica Malaysiana

Measles Outbreak Not Due To New Strain

KUCHING, Jan 25 (Bernama) -- The measles outbreak which killed 13 Penan children and one adult in Long Urun in the Bakun area last month was not caused by a new strain of the disease, Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan said Tuesday.
Dr Chan, who is also state Modernisation of Agriculture Minister, said samples analysed by a team from the Sarawak Medical Department and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) confirmed the virus was not a mutated strain.
"With this strain, the ongoing vaccination of about 700 Penans in the affected settlements takes only 72 hours to be effective. They will be protected against the disease," he told reporters after opening Sarawak Agriculture Department's Senior Officers' Conference in Damai about 35km from here.
The Health Ministry in Kuala Lumpur had been expected to send an investigating team to Sarawak if the results revealed a new strain.
Dr Chan said the semi-nomadic Penans in the Bakun area had not been exposed to measles and so did not develop an immune system naturally.
Apart from the 35 Penan patients, whose conditions were improving at the Bintulu Hospital, no new cases had been reported since yesterday, he said.
Due to the difficult terrain and remoteness of their temporary settlements in Long Urun, he said the flying doctor's service using helicopters had been deployed with 12 medical teams, comprising five personnel each, to vaccinate them.
"It is one of the unfortunate things that it is quite difficult to vaccinate them in the jungle but we have to try our best to get as many (Penans) as possible," he said.
It takes about three hours by logging road to reach Long Urun from the Sungai Asap Resettlement Scheme at Bakun and another three hours from there to Bintulu.
The first death was reported on Dec 27 last year and the last on Jan 11.