Free baby vaccines sold at markets

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After reports earlier this year that donated medicine intended for flood victims was finding its way into the city's markets, a similar scandal has erupted involving certain vaccines essential for the health and well-being of babies.

"The vaccines should be given for free to babies. The public has been denied of a free medical service," Marius Widjajarta, the chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation (YPKKI), said at a media briefing on Monday.

The vaccines can easily be found in several black markets all over the city, such as Pramuka and Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta, in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, or Kebayoran Baru and Blok M in South Jakarta.

"These vaccines are sold at only one-third of the official price," he said, adding that the buyers should be medical workers.

Marius, who is a medical doctor, said the foundation's eight investigators spent some Rp 250,000 (US$28) to buy all types of the vaccines.

They included the BCG vaccines, hepatitis B, measles, tetanus and oral polio vaccines.

Marius said the problem was not only limited to the vaccines being sold to the public, but also its quality.

"Who can guarantee the quality of a vaccine that may not have been stored properly by the vendors?"

The oral vaccine for polio, which lasts for two years if stored at a temperature of -20 degrees Celsius, will expire in just six months if it is stored between 2 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius.

All other vaccines can last for two years if they are properly stored between 2 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius.

The vaccines should only be sold with a physician's prescription, but a brief visit to Pramuka market proved that all the vaccines could be easily bought without one. There were no hassles as long as the sellers had it in stock.

"What else do you need? We have plenty of them," one woman told The Jakarta Post when she was asked for the BCG, diphtheria, pertussus, tetanus (DPT), Hepatitis B and polio vaccines.

Most of the vendors were tightlipped on the source of their vaccines.

All the vaccines were manufactured by Bandung-based PT Bio Farma, which is the country's only producer of vaccines.

Marius played down the possibility that Bio Farma was to blame for the distribution leak.

"It would be impossible for a company with a monopoly to leak the vaccines to the market as that would be equal to suicide.

"It is more likely that it occurred once the vaccines were given to the city health agency and before they were distributed to community health centers all over the city," he said.

Marius also called on the Food and Drug Control Agency to play a more serious role in controlling the distribution of vaccines.

Earlier this year, the government denied allegations that some of the medicine intended for flood victims was also ending up on market shelves after officials claimed they had conducted an investigation into reports made on the case.

Contacted separately, the spokesman for the City Health Agency, Evy Zelfino, told the Post that there was little chance of any discrepancies occurring in the distribution of vaccines from within the agency.

"I haven't heard about this problem but we will look into it. There is also the possibility that the vaccines were acquired from other provinces, but then sold in Jakarta.

"The agency applies a tight one-door system, called the cold chain, to monitor the distribution of vaccines."

She said they distributed the vaccines to any health office which needed a certain vaccine. The offices would then distribute them to public health clinics, she said.