Bekasi leads national drive against polio

Bekasi leads national drive against polio

By Prapti Widinugraheni

BEKASI, West Java (JP): The try-out for an ambitious health program aimed at eradicating polio nation-wide began this week in this administrative town adjacent to Jakarta.

Launched by Bekasi Deputy Regent Dede Satibi, Tuesday's ceremony was attended by the ministry of health's Director General of Contagious Disease Control and Environmental Health, Hadi M. Abednego, as well as representatives of donor organizations and companies.

"This event will make Bekasi part of international history. It will be closely watched by international eyes and become a model of polio eradication for other regions in Indonesia," Hadi said at the launching ceremony.

Bekasi was chosen for the try-out because it represented Indonesia's diverse demographic structure, consisting of a city and its surrounding villages, with residents having a high level of mobility, he said.

Hadi considered the participation of both the town's local government and its residents as a good example for other regions. The township, he said, also had reliable fund sources and sufficient human resources to carry out the project.

"A great deal of voluntary support is accounted for and that cannot be valued in monetary terms," Hadi pointed out.

During the three-day try-out, more than 300,000 children under five years old were to be given the polio vaccine syrup. In addition to this, those between nine months and five years will receive measles vaccine shots while pregnant women and mothers of children below five years of age will get anti-tetanus shots.

Hadi said the campaign to eliminate polio originated as a commitment made by the World Health Assembly and the World Summit for Children in 1988, which agreed to rid the world's population of polio by the year 2000.

He said polio was chosen as the next contagious disease to be eradicated worldwide after small pox because the technology -- in the form of immunization -- is widely available and because the human body is the only carrier of the polio virus.

He pointed out that if every child under the age of five was given polio immunization, there would no longer be a chance for the virus to exist, both in the human body and in the air, since the virus can only survive in open air for less than 48 hours.

Early this year, the government announced that it would conduct a national immunization program for the 22 million children in Indonesia susceptible to the disease.

The program will be carried out on a national level in mid- September and repeated in the same period in 1996 and 1997.

World Health Organization Representative to Indonesia Robert J. Kim-Farley acknowledged that Indonesia, together with Bangladesh, Thailand and Sri Lanka, would be the next countries after the Americas and the Western Pacific region to launch the polio eradication program.

"Two years ago, national immunization programs were launched in China and Vietnam and they have greatly reduced the number of polio cases from more than 1,000 to about 100 cases per year and are expected to go down to zero this year," he told The Post.

He said Indonesia is expected to be free of polio transmission when the program is completed in three years, in 1997, based on the experience of other countries which have already succeeded in eradicating the disease.

Hadi pointed out that polio eradication would be an advantage not only from the human resources point of view but also from the financial side, because it could cut back a large amount of government spending for health programs.

Darodjatun, President Director of PT Bio Farma, which is the major producer of polio vaccine for the program, said about 60 million doses of vaccine would be required every year.

The company, he said, would enlarge its production capacity from the normal 20 million doses to 45 million doses. The other 15 million would be sought from foreign sources, he added.

Abidin Kartasoebrata, National Chairman for Rotary International's Polio Plus Indonesia program, said his club has donated US$9 million, since 1987, for the program.

"The funds have been used to help in the production of polio vaccines and for the procurement of freezers used to store the vaccine, up to the village level," he told the Post.