KUALA LUMPUR: Parents have been urged to put aside their “wait and see” approach with their children’s vaccination and get them immunised without delay as the number of Covid-19 hospital admissions rises.

       Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said to date, only 30% of children aged five to 11 have been vaccinated under the national immunisation programme for kids (PICKids).

       “I feel sad seeing that the vaccination rate for children aged five to 11 is only at 30%. With the number of Covid-19 cases increasing, hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admission rising, some parents still choose not to give their kids the protection.

       “The time to 'wait and see' is over. We have had PICKids for over a month now and we can see that it is safe. Vaccination gives protection to children from the most severe of symptoms and prevents admission into hospital or the ICU,” said Khairy

       “I am pleading to parents, do not waste time, get your children vaccinated,” he added at a press conference in Parliament on Wednesday (March 9).

       Khairy said there were 600,000 children who did not turn up for their vaccination appointments that were given through MySejahtera.

       “We handed out 1.63 million vaccination appointments via MySejahtera, but only one million were vaccinated. That means over 600,000 did not come for their appointments,” said Khairy.

       So we need to ramp up our campaigns to get parents to bring their children for vaccination, especially now that school is resuming,” he added.

       Khairy said between mid-February to March this year, the number of children aged below 12 who were infected by Covid-19 was 68,893.

       This is an increase compared to January to mid-February, when the number was 50,826.

       He added that the number of admissions into paediatric centres has been surging since January.

       The rate of admission into paediatric ICUs have gone up by 94% between January and March.

       Khairy also said children who are infected by Covid-19 are at risk of suffering from Long Covid as well as a multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C).

       “From June 2020 to December 2021, 174 adolescents below 18 suffered from MIS-C due to Covid-19 infection, of which seven (4%) died.

       “Infected children are also at risk of suffering from Long Covid. The limited data that we have right now shows that infected children are at less risk compared to adults, but there is not much known about the long term effects of Long Covid on children,” he said.

       Khairy said among the initiatives taken by the ministry to persuade parents to vaccinate their children is through their programmes at paediatric centres.

       “There are PICKids booths set up at paediatric centres where there are experts and experienced medical officers who will give explanations to parents who are concerned about vaccinating their children.

       “We will also try to persuade paediatric patients who are admitted for other reasons to be vaccinated if they are not.

       “We will also offer jabs to child siblings of patients if there is enough supply of vaccines,” said Khairy.