26/05/2026

TUESDAY | MAY 26, 2026

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The Malaysia worth keeping Y OU know that feeling when you come home after a long trip abroad and the first thing you do is head straight to the mornings that feel like Sunday mornings. That is not a small thing. That is honestly everything.

And we built that – Malaysians built that. Through decades of just getting on with it together – Melayu, Cina, India, Iban, Kadazan, semua sekali – figuring out how to share a country and somehow, imperfectly, beautifully make it work. It is not perfect. It has never been perfect but it is ours and it is real, and it is warm in a way that cannot be faked. Now, the world wants a piece of it. Good. Bring in the investors. Bring in the skilled people. The Johor Singapore Special Economic Zone,

nearest mamak ? You sit down, order your mee goreng and teh tarik , look around at the mix of people at every table – different races, different religions, same plastic chair – and you just exhale. That feeling? That is Malaysia. Not the fancy stuff, not the Twin Towers photo and not the tourism tagline. That exhale. That ease. That feeling that life here, despite everything, is still manageable and still warm. That feeling that your neighbour will still

the tech companies setting up here, the professionals relocating with their families – all of this is good for Malaysia. We need it. We want it. Growth is not the enemy. But jangan lupa – we are not a clearance sale. Because here is the quiet thing nobody wants to say loudly at a press conference or investment forum. When the foreigners come and the developments go up and the money flows in, the ones who slowly cannot afford to stay are not the expats; they are us – the regular Malaysians. The young couple who grew |up in Penang and cannot afford to buy a house in the town their grandparents built.

knock on your door with a plate of kuih just because she made too much and thought of you. Hold that. Hold that very tight because people are coming here for exactly that. Not for our nightclubs. Not because we are the most glamorous destination on the map. They are coming because they can actually live here – properly live, not just survive. They can afford a house with a garden. Feed their family well three times a day without doing mental arithmetic at the menu. Breathe a little. Feel safe walking to the kedai at night. Watch their children grow up with space, colour and a community around them. Westerners who settle here will tell

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Through decades of just getting on with it together, Malaysians figured out how to share a country and somehow, imperfectly, beautifully make it work. – ADIB RAWI YAHYA/THESUN

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(PCV) could reduce all-cause under-five mortality. That evidence helped nations add new vaccines to their NIPs. As Malaysia rebuilds post pandemic, we face another quiet crisis: routine immunisation coverage has dipped and new vaccines await inclusion. The nostalgic moments from our Hib fight – the cricket match, the twin tower stand and the relentless local research – are not mere history; they are a roadmap. One tower was enough then. Today, we need not less ambition but the same clarity: Put children first, gather local evidence and champion the cause with courage. The past did not eliminate Hib – people did. And they can do it again. Dr Musa Mohd Nordin is a paediatrician at KPJ Damansara Specialist Hospital and Dr Zulkifli Ismail is a paediatrician at KPJ Selangor Specialist Hospital. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com food honest and the portions generous. Keep the warmth that makes people land at KLIA, step into that humidity and feel somehow already comfortable before they have even collected their luggage. Make this place worth staying for – not just for the ones arriving but for the ones who were born here and deserve to grow old here too. Attract the world but do it on your terms, with your values and at your own pace without apologising for knowing your own worth. Because the moment Malaysia stops feeling like Malaysia – that exhale, that ease, that plastic chair at the mamak at midnight with strangers who somehow feel like family – no amount of foreign investment or glossy development will ever bring it back. Jaga baik-baik . This is worth keeping. Written with love, a little pelempang and one very strong teh tarik. Itu aje, sekian . Azura Abas is the executive editor of theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

symbolic tower for a child’s life – saved thousands. The lessons for our future? First, nostalgia is not just sentiment; it is a strategic archive. The Hib success shows that local data, cost effectiveness analysis and a champion with moral clarity can overcome even economic collapse. Second, innovation doesn’t always mean a new molecule. Prof Shabir Madhi, the youngest on the panel, who introduced PCV to South Africa, reminded us of critical enablers: strong national surveillance, local data, an active immunisation advisory committee and smart marketing to politicians. These same levers can accelerate new vaccines – against rotavirus, Human Papilloma Virus or future threats. Third, collaboration works. Prof Kim Mulholland demonstrated Hib and then pneumococcal vaccine efficacy in The Gambia with 43,000 participants – showing for the first time that a vaccine simply want a cheaper version of somewhere else while treating the locals like furniture in the background of their lifestyle. We see you. Makcik always sees you. So Malaysia, dengarlah . You are not just a destination. You are not a brand to be packaged and sold to the highest bidder at some sleek roadshow in Geneva or Dubai. You are a living, breathing, sweating, eating, laughing and occasionally-exasperating home to millions of people who did not choose to be born here by accident – and who would choose it again if they could. And while we welcome the world in, let us not forget the ones quietly slipping out the back. Every year, talented Malaysians leave – not with anger but with a heavy heart and one last nasi lemak at the airport. They love home – they never stop loving it. But somewhere along the way, home and them just could not quite make it work. That is the part that should keep us up at night. Keep the cost of living real. Keep the communities intact. Keep the

Infectious Diseases that Hib caused 50% of paediatric meningitis. Despite Asian scepticism about Hib’s prevalence and relevance, our cost effectiveness analysis proved favourable. A proposal was submitted to the Health Ministry. Then the 1997 economic depression hit. Many programmes stalled. But Dr Narimah Awin, then director of Family Health, famously declared: “We don’t need a twin tower. One tower is enough. The money from the other tower can fund our Hib vaccination programme.” That was the turning point. In 2002, Malaysia became the first Asian nation to introduce Hib vaccine into its National Immunisation Programme (NIP) as part of the pentavalent combination, dramatically accelerating uptake. Today, Hib disease is virtually eliminated in Malaysia. Nearly two decades on, the evidence is clear: that single declaration – sacrificing a they fit in this new glossy version of home. That is the lempang we need to feel before it is too late. We are not anti-foreigner. Jangan salah faham. Malaysians are some of the most naturally hospitable people on earth. We will share our table, share our food and share our directions even when we are not entirely sure of the way ourselves. We will recommend our favourite stall and feel genuinely pleased when you love it as much as we do. That generosity is in our bones and it is something to be proud of. But hospitality is not the same as giving away the house. Welcome the people who come here to genuinely contribute, integrate and respect what they have found. The ones who learn a little Bahasa, who tapau from the same gerai as everyone else, who understand that what makes Malaysia special is not despite its complexity but entirely because of it. Those people make us richer – not just economically but humanly. And gently but firmly, do not roll out the red carpet for those who

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“Make this place worth staying for – not just for the ones arriving but for the ones who were born here and deserve to grow old here too.

you the same thing over and over. Malaysia is where they finally stopped being stressed about money long enough to actually enjoy their children growing up. To be present – to have Sunday

The fresh graduate in KL paying half their salary in rent for a room, not even a unit, a room. The family in Johor watching their neighbourhood change around them and wondering where exactly

Lessons from the past, vaccines for the future

COMMENT by Dr Musa Mohd Nordin and Dr Zulkifli Ismail

based on CoP for PCV10, PCV13, US$2 (RM7.90) Pneumosil in 2019 and more recently, PCV 15, PCV 20 and PCV 21. But two stories stood out – one global, one deeply Malaysian. First, Prof Mathuram Santosham, now 82, who conducted the earliest Hib vaccine trials among Navajo Indians. In 2002, he travelled to India, cricket bat in spirit, only to find authorities unmoved. His breakthrough came not in a boardroom but on a pitch: playing cricket with Indian players, he turned them into champions for Hib vaccination. Sometimes, the most powerful advocacy is personal. Then came Dr Musa from the floor, recounting Malaysia’s own Hib journey. “Santosham’s provocations intimidated us,” he admitted, “but they worked”. Inspired by Mathu’s shared research, Malaysian paediatricians studied local Hib burden under the then head of paediatric service, Dr Hussain Imam, publishing in the Pediatric Journal of

IN the early 1990s, Malaysia faced a quiet crisis. Hidden among the fevers and coughs of our youngest children lay a bacterial killer – _Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) – responsible for half of all bacterial meningitis cases in our paediatric wards. Few spoke of it. Fewer measured it. But a small group of clinicians, inspired by research shared from halfway across the world, decided to act. That quiet determination was on full display recently when some of the world’s most distinguished vaccine scientists – all paediatricians – gathered on one panel of vaccine experts. It was a dream assembly: Dr Ranna Hajjeh, who bridged CDC and WHO to tackle Hib research and supply chain gaps; Dr Thomas Cherian, present at the birth of GAVI in 2000; and legends like Prof David Goldblatt, whose work on correlates of protection (CoP) enabled pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) to move from efficacy trials for PCV7 licensure in 2000, to licensure