Government admits to more polio cases
The Jakarta Post, Bandung/Yogyakarta/Jakarta
Following investigations into two recently-found polio-cases in Sukabumi, West Java, the government has confirmed three more cases, causing alarm that an epidemic of polio has broken out after ten years of being free of the disease.
The outbreak has prompted the government to launch a massive two-round immunization program that will be carried out in Banten, Jakarta and West Java on May 31 and June 28, after conducting a preliminary vaccination program in the locality where the initial case was found.
"As of May 6, we found 15 cases of acute flaccid paralysis (in Sukabumi), of which three were confirmed to have been caused by imported wild polio virus similar to that found in Saudi Arabia," Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said in a press conference on Friday.
Some 10 other cases were still awaiting examination results, while one case had been declared negative, and another still needed confirmation as to whether it was the wild virus or a vaccine derived virus, she said.
However, the West Java provincial health agency reported 18 suspected polio-cases in Sukabumi.
The virus, usually infecting children, was suspected to have been carried in by groups of haj pilgrims or Indonesian migrant workers coming back from Saudi Arabia.
"There were no haj pilgrims from Girijaya (a village in Sukabumi) last season and it is more likely that the carriers were migrant workers from surrounding villages," the ministry's director general of contagious disease control Umar Fahmi Achmadi said, adding that more suspected cases had been found in two neighboring villages.
A World Health Organization officer, Bardan Rana, said that all the infected children had not been fully immunized for polio.
The health minister claimed that the children had not been immunized due to either cultural reluctance of the family or because of inactivity on the part of local health centers. "It is not for financial reasons because the government provides the vaccines for free," she said.
World Health Organization (WHO) representative Georg Petersen admitted that as long as there were countries where the polio virus was endemic, every other country was at risk of importation of the virus.
"Especially if there are pockets where children have not received vaccines," Petersen added.
The ministry is also conducting intensified surveillance in Bali, Java, Lampung and South Sumatra, but has not yet planned a national immunization program. "We have not yet planned this nationally, but we have done as recommended by the WHO that geographically and ecologically these three provinces are in need of immediate preventive action," Umar said.
Several global donors have reportedly expressed concern and contributed aid to run immunization campaigns, which is estimated to cost Rp 8.45 billion (US$890,000) for vaccines alone.
Among the donors are the WHO, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as business association Rotary International, which have collectively set aside US$4 million for the campaign.
Australia, through its AusAID agency, has also agreed to give A$1 million. (003)