Bogor to vaccine over 80,000 infants

Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor

As many as 80,623 children under five in Bogor will receive a polio vaccination on May 31 and June 28 to prevent the spread of the disease in the municipality.

The vaccination program will be carried out in various places including infant health care centers, community health centers, hospitals, bus terminals, kindergartens, play groups and other public places, said head of the Communicable Disease Eradication and Sanitation office Sri Pinantari Hanum on Wednesday.

Sri said health officers would also carry out door-to-door vaccinations for infants whose parents could not take them to vaccination centers.

Bogor is near Sukabumi regency, where dozens of infants have been diagnosed as having contracted polio. The municipality was declared polio-free in 1995.

Sri said that the administration had allocated 12,540 vials of polio vaccine for the program.

She said her office would also mark all houses in the municipality in connection with the vaccination program.

The houses of families that have no infants would be marked with the letter O, while houses of families whose children have been vaccinated will be marked with the letter V and houses of families whose infants have not been vaccinated with the letter X.