Govt begin final stage of campaign to eradicate polio

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia entered a decisive stage in eradicating polio when it began yesterday the final phase of a three-year national campaign to wipe out the disease.

Minister of Health Sujudi launched the final polio eradication drive yesterday, aimed at immunizing 22 million children under the age of five.

Indonesia is coveting a free-polio certificate from the World Health Organization (WHO) which hopefully will be granted by 2000, he said.

Sujudi kicked off the campaign yesterday at Tanggamus Regency, Lampung where he helped administer polio vaccines to several children.

The current drive lasts for three days, but some provinces will extend their efforts to Oct. 15 due to the haze.

Throughout the country, 286,000 immunization posts have been set up at public locations like health centers, bus stations, kindergartens and child care centers.

Since 1995, Indonesia has completed five national polio immunizations campaigns. Each year two are held.

Children under five years of age are administered polio vaccines free of charge.

Sujudi urged parents to take their children to local immunization posts even if they have already been vaccinated during the first round of the polio eradication drive on Sept. 2.

He explained that it would take three weeks after the immunization for a child to develop resistance to the disease, but the vaccine could be expelled through waste.

"Being vaccinated more than once will not reduce their resistance (to the disease), in fact it will boost it," Antara quoted him as saying in Lampung yesterday.

The first round of this year's polio eradication drive immunized 23.4 million children, exceeding the initial campaign target by 100,000 children.

"The increase resulted from parents' greater awareness of the importance of polio immunization to prevent polio," Sujudi said.

While the national polio eradication campaign ends with the current drive, Sujudi said immunization at the local level would continue.

In Central Java, Governor Soewardi initiated the first day of the drive yesterday by dropping polio vaccines into the mouths of children in Boyolali.

Some 5,236 immunization posts in 1,852 villages have been set up to attract three million toddlers.

In West Sumatra, chairwoman of the local Family Welfare Movement group, Muchlis Ibrahim launched the campaign by helping to immunize toddlers.

More than half-a-million children are targeted in the drive. Over 5,710 immunization posts have been set up in public areas, such as seaports, airports and bus stations.

In Dili, East Timor, the Governor's wife, Maria Angela Lemos Osorio Soares, marked the first day of the campaign by vaccinating three-year-old Vini M. Valente, four-year-old Jessica Maria Margareta and nine-month-old Aires Ronald.

The campaign in East Timor is expected to reach 144,720 children. (07/09/41)