Govt kicks off third round of polio vaccination drive

Govt kicks off third round of polio vaccination drive

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Semarang/Bandung

The third round of the nationwide polio vaccination campaign took
place on Wednesday as health authorities work to wipe out the
crippling disease, which reemerged here in April a decade after
the country was declared polio-free.

First Lady Kristiani Herrawati kicked off this latest round of
the campaign by administering oral vaccines to 10 children at a
vaccination post in Jakarta. She expressed hope authorities would
achieve their goal of vaccinating 23.6 million children under the
age of five across the country.

"God willing, the third round will be 100 percent successful,"
she said.

During the first round of vaccinations in June, health
authorities reached only 95 percent of targeted children. The
second round in September saw a success rate of 97.5 percent.

The wives of several Cabinet members and high-ranking
officials were dispatched to locations across the country to help
ensure the success of this latest round of vaccinations.

Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari, accompanied by Vice
President Jusuf Kalla's wife Mufidah, led the vaccinations in her
hometown Padang, West Sumatra.

"If the (current) campaign is successful, in March 2006 we
will be polio-free," the minister said.

The government plans to hold two more rounds of vaccinations
next year to ensure the complete eradication of the disease.

State-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma, which
manufactured the vaccines for the campaign, said it produced two
types of vaccine for health authorities.

Marzuki Abdullah, the director of Bio Farma, said the company
distributed the Monovalen type of vaccine for Java, Lampung and
South Sumatra, where a number of polio cases have been reported,
while it produced the Trivalen type of vaccine for other regions.

The Monovalen type of vaccine is more potent than the Trivalen
type, he said. Bio Farma produced a total of 19.8 million doses
for the campaign.

"The three regions where polio has been reported require a
more potent vaccine than other regions that have no reported
polio cases," he said in Bandung.

In Semarang, Central Java, thousands of children were
vaccinated at 1,554 health posts. The campaign in the city was
led by Mayor Sukawi Sutarip, accompanied by the wife of State
Minister for State Enterprises Tien Sugiharto.

In South Sumatra, authorities set up 9,012 vaccination posts,
manned by 27,036 health workers, to vaccinate a targeted 861,052
children.

Nationwide 250,000 vaccination posts were established to treat
over 23 million children.

Polio, which is thought to have been brought back here from
Nigeria, has affected 295 people across the country since it was
detected in April.

Polio spreads when unvaccinated people come into contact with
the feces of those with the virus, often through contaminated
water in places with poor hygiene or inadequate sewage systems.

The disease attacks the nervous system in young children,
causing paralysis, muscular atrophy and sometimes death. Only
about one in 200 of those infected with polio ever develop
symptoms.