Recently, we have been shocked by a statement by Suhaimi Saad, one of the team members

of popular nasyeed group in Malaysia, Inteam about he didn’t vaccinate all his four children.
Nowadays, there have been a movement to reject vaccination. They claimed that vaccine can cause
dangerous diseases towards human such as autism and many more. Actually, the ideology of anti-
vaccination movement has a long history. It starts in France in 1763 and the movement and
continuing through to today. In the early day if the immunization, the trust issue towards vaccination
was well-warranted due to no official quarantine for those who had been vaccinated and 18th
century doctors didn’t have quite the same standard as today in terms of sanitation and disease
prevention.

But even in 2013, the anti-vaccination movement continues to leave the door open to
outbreaks of diseases that have been all but eradicated by modern medicine. The disease includes
polio, measles, whooping cough and many more. For example, polio still remains an epidemic in
Pakistan due to the banning of aid workers from vaccinating children by the Taliban. They claimed
that vaccination efforts are meant to disguise their enemies to spy on them. Any health workers that
attempt to distributed vaccines will be attacked and killed. As the results, a total of 101 cases of
polio reported in the country, and there are still 240,000 children have not vaccinated. We can see
how dangerous the effect of not being vaccinated.

There are several reasons to be vaccinated. Vaccination has saved millions of lives from the
day it was created. Without it, 2 to 3 million more children and adults would die every year from
many diseases such as meningitis, diphtheria, measles and many other vaccine-preventable
diseases. In Malaysia specifically, vaccine has rid the smallpox diseases and also had made Malaysia
a polio-free country. Smallpox is an untreatable disease that once killed 1 in every 3 infected people.
Polio is a disease where the chances not to be dead are very low, and if they survived, they will be
paralysed until they die. Next, there is also vaccine that can protect us from cancer. For example, the
human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) and the hepatitis B vaccine can protect us against cervical
cancer and liver cancer. Our body depends on our immune system to protect us from disease. By
vaccination, we can boost our immune system to prevent ourselves from diseases. Diseases such as
chronic hepatitis B and polio remain incurable despite medical advances.

Some of us are curios how vaccine work to protect us. Basically, our body has their own
immune system. The vaccine actually lends our body’s immune system a helping hand, thus making
it stronger an providing it with more ammunition to fight back the bad germs. Our body were
exposed to many germs since the moment we are born. Our immune system is made up of many
tiny cells called antibodies. The main roles of antibodies are to attack anything that doesn’t belong in
our body. The immune system quickly makes more antibodies to kill all invading germs when they
enter our body. Vaccine actually help the immune system by training the antibodies to recognise
certain specific germs so that the antibodies is prepared enough when the real bad germs infect our
body. First of all, small amount of antigens are injected into our body or given through mouth or
nose, via vaccines. Antigens train the antibodies to recognise specific germs and triggers a response
without actually making the body sick. The response is the production of antibodies that recognise
and fight of the germs. At the same time, our body makes memory cells. The memory cells and
antibodies will work together to remember and attack the germs when an infection occur. This
method of defence is called active immunity.

So, the question is, who needs to be immunised? Well, there are now 26 different diseases
that can be prevented through vaccination, thanks to the advancement in medicine. Each disease is
different, and an individual’s age and lifestyle will affect how vulnerable they are t a particular
disease. For children, they are most vulnerable in their first 2 years of life, which is why they seems
to get the most vaccinations. Doctors and experts have carefully designed the childhood
immunisation schedule which is known as National Immunisation Programme to ensure the little
ones receive basic yet essential protection from 12 vaccine-prevented diseases. But the protection
given by the childhood vaccine may wear off over time. So, adults also are vulnerable to the vaccine-
prevented diseases due to our age, health condition, job requirement and where are we travelling
to. Some diseases are so common in adults and young adults in United States of America that they
require the prove that they have been vaccinated before entering college. Elderly also need to be
vaccinated as they generally have weaker immune system, hence there are more susceptible to
vaccine-preventable diseases. For example, most common illness the elderly go though is
pneumonia and therefore need to be immunised with the pneumococcal vaccine.

Recently, TV Alhijrah through its program Analisis has invited 2 panel, Dr Nurul Huda who is
a freelance doctor and Dato’ Dr Musa, a doctor specialized in Paediatrician and Neonatologist at KPJ
Damansara Specialist Hospital and Clinical Professor of Paediatrics at the KPJ International University
College to have a debate about vaccine titled “Vaksin: Perlindungan atau Kemudaratan”. Dr Nurul
Huda is a representative for the anti-vaccine people. From the debate, Dr Huda state that the anti-
vaxx people rejects vaccine as they’re worried about its side effects that claimed can cause serious
health problems. They are exaggeratively worried about the Adverse Event Following Immunization
(AEFI). But, Dr Musa break the argument by giving facts that there are, as Dr. Huda said, the side
effects of vaccine exist, but only simple diseases such as fever and rash at the injection area. There
are big cases that have been reported due to vaccine. For example, a man is paralyzed after injection
of polio vaccine, but it is the only cases.in the terms. The case ratio is 1 to 2.5 million of people. So,
do we have to deny the right of the other 2.5 million people just because of this one case? Dr. Huda
also stated that she agreed with the points of the anti-vaxx movement is because of the testimonies,
complains, rumours, thoughts and perception of the community. Once again, the statement is
rejected by Dr Musa by stating that the top of the hierarchy of information source is Randomized
Control Trial (RCT) research paper, and the lowest is the testimony, complains and so on. We can see
that anti-vaxx are points are irrelevant because their theories are only from assumptions without
any scientific prove about their statement. So, if they have Randomized Control Trial (RCT) AEFI that
can cause harm to people, then prove it! Dr Musa also stated there is a drastic increment for
measles case from 195 cases in 2013 to 1934 cases in 2018 due to the anti-vaccination movement.
At the end, we can see that Dr Huda seems to agree with Dr Musa about vaccination after cannot
fighting back Dr Musa argument, although she made a statement in her Facebook complaining that
the programme is biased.

As a conclusion, vaccines are the safest, most effective way of protecting ourselves from
diseases. Vaccine certainly do not cause serious medical condition such as autism and sudden infant
death syndrome (SIDS) as claimed by the anti-vaccination movement, as it has been rigorously
tested and well researched before they are registered for use. The anti-vaccination movement
should be completely shut down forever as their false information can cause harms towards the
community. The ministry department and also other third-parties should work together to create
awareness such as campaign so that people can see the truth clearly about vaccination. The anti-
vaccination movement has been expanded by day and this can cause serious problems towards our
nation’s future. Remember, prevention is better than cure. Do you rather get vaccinated and
vaccinate your children or spending lots of money to cure the disease that caused by your foolness
for not getting vaccinated?