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MOH files police report over Healing the Divide's call to 'disrupt' paediatric vaccination centres

Doctor making a vaccination in the shoulder of patient teens girls person, Flu Vaccination Injection on Arm, coronavirus,covid-19 vaccine disease preparing for human clinical trials vaccination shot
A teenage girl getting a vaccination jab. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Wednesday (5 January) that it has filed a police report against Healing the Divide, a group founded by anti-vaccination advocate Iris Koh.

MOH said in a Facebook post that Koh had exhorted parents to “visit paediatric vaccination centres to overwhelm on-site medical staff with questions” via a message on its Telegram channel on 27 December last year.

“Such an act will greatly disrupt operations at our paediatric vaccination centres, and amount to an instigation of harassment of the medical staff," said MOH.

MOH urged people to exercise social responsibility and not be “misled by the promptings of the group”, which it said has a history of sharing misleading information about COVID-19 and its vaccines.

In relation to vaccination, MOH said that the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and other regulatory authorities around the world have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine for use in children aged 5 to 11 after comprehensive clinical trials.

It added that the process was no different from how other drugs have been approved for use.

Koh and a man believed to be her husband were previously investigated for instigating others to call and overwhelm public hotlines that help the public with COVID-19 issues.

The Singapore Police Force said on 25 November last year that it had received a report on 18 October alleging that the duo had incited more than 2,000 members in a Telegram group to overwhelm public hotlines through sharing their feedback on the stricter COVID-19 measures for unvaccinated people in public places.

Koh later apologised for the comment on a video posted to her Facebook account on 29 November, calling her comment "definitely wrong".

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