Malaysian honoured for work on vaccine

PETALING JAYA: Her compassionate nature and fondness for children spurred Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Dr Chan Yoke Fun (pic) to develop a vaccine that could combat viruses causing the highly contagious hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), as well as brain infections in children.

The head of the Medical Microbiology Department from UM’s Faculty of Medicine was awarded the coveted Asean-US Science Prize for Women 2020 for her research which proved that a “multivalent vaccine” (a vaccine which can combat more than one specific virus) could be made to fight HFMD and brain diseases among children.