KUCHING: United People’s Party (UPP) has placed its election machinery in top gear as the 11th state election is speculated to be held in March.
Its deputy president, Datuk Dr Jerip Susil, said the party had frozen the holidays of party members in order to be well prepared for the polls.
“Our election machinery is now in top gear. We have gone to the ground non-stop to ensure that the seats we are going to contest will be delivered for the BN,” Dr Jerip told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Even though he did not mention the seats that UPP will contest in, it is understood that the party is in full swing in the Bumiputera-majority areas of Mambong, Opar and Engkilili.
“As the incumbent for Mambong (formerly known as Bengoh), I am also helping to promote the BN in the new constituency of Serembu to ensure that whoever is fielded by the BN will win the seat.”
He was confident the BN could win the Bidayuh-majority seat even though it had not been allocated to any BN component parties yet. Dr Jerip was also confident that UPP could deliver the three predominantly Bumiputera seats that the party currently held, namely Opar, Mambong and Engikili.
“For Chinese seats, I leave it to our party president (Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh) to comment.”
When asked how many seats UPP was eyeing, Dr Jerip said it was up to Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem to decide.
He was, however, quick to point out that the Dec 17, 2015, meeting could be the final meeting for Adenan to decide on seats allocation between UPP and SUPP.
In the last state election in 2011, SUPP was allocated 19 seats, but lost 13. This time around, with the addition of 11 new seats, there is speculation that SUPP and UPP will be given one seat each to appease both sides.
On another matter, Dr Jerip, who is also Assistant Minister of Public Health, said the Ministry of Health had not made any statement regarding Dengvaxia – the first-ever vaccine against dengue fever that has been cleared for use in Mexico.
According to a recent news report, French manufacturer Sanofi said the vaccine had been described as the “innovation of the decade”.
The vaccine could potentially become ‘a blockbuster’ and generate more than a billion dollars in revenue for the French pharmaceutical company, which took 20 years and spent more than 1.5bil euros (about RM7bil) in research and development to create Dengvaxia. It has been reported that several million doses of the vaccine are ready to ship, and Sanofi expects annual production to reach 100 million doses by 2017.
A stockpile for the European Union will be shipped early this year, and for the US a year later. Clinical tests – carried out on 40,000 people from 15 countries – found that Dengvaxia can immunise two-thirds of people aged nine years and older, rising to 93 per cent for dengue haemorrhagic fever, and reducing the risk of hospitalisation by 80 per cent. Until now, scientists have been stumped by dengue, which is caused by four separate viruses acting in concert.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said dengue has become the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease, with as many as 400 million people infected every year. Dengue fever has been a threat to health in Malaysia for a long time. It can trigger a crippling fever, along with muscle and joint pain. There is no known cure.
According to WHO, the deadliest form of this disease kills 22,000 people annually. Over the past 50 years, dengue has become endemic in more than 100 tropical and sub-tropical countries, thanks largely to rapid urbanisation.-Borneo Post
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