Govt optimistic over polio vaccination drive

Govt optimistic over polio vaccination drive

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The government expressed optimism on Friday that it would be able
to curb the country's first polio outbreak in a decade, which has
infected 226 children nationwide.

Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said that after an
intensive antipolio campaign that involved two world
organizations and local ones, the government had scheduled the
second round of the two-day immunization drive for Aug. 30 and
Sept. 27, with a target of immunizing more than 24 million
children under the age of five.

"Certainly, I am optimistic. This time, we are more aggressive
than during the previous vaccination drive and so are WHO and
Unicef," she said.

She said the Ministry of Health has obtained financial and
technical aid from WHO and Unicef, and promoted the antipolio
drive with the help of religious and women's organizations such
as Muhammadiyah, Muslimat NU, Aisyiah and the Christian Women's
Organization to make the planned vaccination program a success.

The minister further said that after disseminating guidelines
and establishing vaccination posts in all strategic locations,
the government had distributed almost 70 million doses of polio
vaccine supplied by state-owned pharmaceutical firm PT Bio Farma
and donor agencies, to all provinces.

WHO representative in Indonesia Georg Petersen expressed a
similar hope, saying that his organization, along with Unicef and
the U.S. Centre for Disease Control (CDC), was making an all-out
effort to make the vaccination campaign a national success.

He warned that the crippling virus would fast spread to
neighboring countries in the region if Indonesia failed to curb
the polio outbreak. That is why all elements of society need to
play an active part in the immunization program to ensure it
reaches its targets, he said.

Indonesia was declared free of polio in 1995 but the disease
reappeared in April this year with three children under five
diagnosed as having polio, in Sukabumi, West Java. The disease,
which is believed to have been brought back here from Nigeria,
has now crippled 226 victims in 108 villages in Central and West
Java, Banten, Lampung and Jakarta.

The upcoming second round of the vaccination program follows
the previous limited program -- which covered only three
provinces but failed to reach all the targeted 6.5 million
children due to strong resistance from certain communities as
they deemed the vaccines unsafe.

According to the latest data from the health ministry, the
number of cases of acute paralysis caused by polio has reached
377.

The Cirebon regental administration has detected two new cases
of polio in the regency.

Chief of the local health office J. Suwanta said in Cirebon on
Friday that Eti Nueti, three, and one-year-old Kisyanto, both
children from Grogol village, in Kepetakan subdistrict, were
positively infected with the virus and his office was still
investigating how they contracted the disease.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has declared
that the oral polio vaccines to be given to children in the
second round of the immunization program are safe.

"The polio vaccines are safe for consumption and permitted
under Islamic law," MUI secretary-general Ichwan Sam said.

Ichwan said the MUI had issued the edict since certain
communities in the society doubted the vaccines' safety.

He said the MUI had disseminated the edict to all clerics
nationwide in a bid to encourage parents to bring their children
to vaccination posts on Aug. 30 and Sept. 27.