Sagah confident vaccine will be developed to fight rabies
KUCHING: Minister of Education, Innovation and Talent Development Dato Sri Roland Sagah Wee Inn believes that a vaccine for rabies will be developed to address concerns across Southeast Asia.
He emphasised the urgency in combating rabies, citing its prevalence in Sarawak, Indonesia and the Philippines.
“As we all know, we have just faced Covid-19 but we also have rabies and there is currently no vaccine for rabies, so hopefully SIDC (Sarawak Infectious Disease Centre) will come up with something later on for rabies,” he told reporters when met at the SIDC site handingover ceremony here yesterday.
He further expressed hope for collaboration with Australian researchers at the SIDC, highlighting the potential for SIDC to become a regional centre for infectious disease research and response.
“We have some researchers from Australia who are studying rabies in Indonesia, and we hope to collaborate with them and do research here so our place will be the centre.
“We are very strategic as Sarawak is right in the middle of Southeast Asia, so we can all be happy,” he added.
Sagah also mentioned leveraging collaborations with institutions and critical disease centres worldwide, including those in Switzerland, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
These collaborations aim to tap into advanced expertise in biomedical matters and pharmaceutical product manufacturing.
The SIDC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sarawak Research and Development Council (SRDC), is poised to play a pivotal role in bolstering the region’s response to health crises. It aims to enhance the state’s ability to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks globally, with a focus on developing diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
Sagah stressed the importance of being prepared for pandemics and other infectious disease outbreaks, drawing parallels with the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As we have seen with the Covid-19 pandemic, nobody was truly prepared because nobody expected it.
“Our aim with this facility is to ensure that Sarawak is ready for any eventual pandemic. Touch wood, it won’t happen again, but we must be prepared,” he said.