Poll: Nearly nine in 10 Malaysians back mandatory vaccination, trust in local healthcare surged in 2020

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 — Malaysian respondents overwhelmingly supported compulsory vaccinations for serious infectious diseases and have grown to trust the local healthcare system more in the past two years, according to a new Ipsos poll.

In the Ipsos State of the Healthcare System report, 86 per cent of Malaysians polled said they either “strongly agree” or “tend to agree” that vaccinating against serious infectious diseases should be compulsory.

“In this regard, Malaysians clearly stand out compared to people in other countries. The views on the topic differ widely across the world, with only half of Americans and less than half of Russians supporting compulsory vaccinations,” Ipsos said in its report.

The global average of support for compulsory vaccinations was 64 per cent.

More Malaysians also agreed to compulsory vaccinations than their Asiatic neighbours, including in India (76 per cent), South Korea (74 per cent), China (60 per cent) and Japan (52 per cent).

Also from the report, exactly three quarters of Malaysians surveyed this year said they trust the healthcare system in Malaysia to provide them with the best treatment. In 2018, this had been 63 per cent.

In contrast, globally only 50 per cent of respondents trust the healthcare system in their country this year.

Malaysians also thought more highly of their healthcare system in two other categories.

Sixty-two per cent of Malaysians believed the healthcare system in their country provides the same standard of care to everyone, while only 37 per cent of people worldwide believe so.

While 59 per cent of people interviewed globally thought many in their country could not afford good healthcare, only half of the Malaysians here reported thinking the same.

However, 62 per cent of Malaysians said waiting times to get an appointment with doctors are too long in their country — the same as the global average.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has been a severe test for healthcare systems across the world. With the pandemic still at large, Malaysia’s healthcare system has fared much better than in many other countries,” said Ipsos public affairs senior manager Lars Erik Lie.

The data presented in Ipsos’ report was gathered through a survey conducted between September 25 and October 9 this year, on 20,009 adults across 22 countries, via the Ipsos Online Panel system.

Ipsos, claims to be one of the largest market research companies in the world, with a presence in 90 markets and over 18,000 employees.