Parents told to take their kids for polio vaccination

Parents told to take their kids for polio vaccination

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Fearing a polio outbreak in the capital, the Jakarta
administration called on all Jakartans to take their children to
get a free polio vaccination between May 31 and June 28.

"All children below five-years-old need to get the
vaccinations, including foreigners. Please, do not hesitate to
bring children to nearby vaccination posts. It will be free of
charge," City Health Agency spokesperson Zelvyno told The Jakarta
Post.

Every third or fourth neighborhood unit will have a
vaccination post, manned by four to five health workers.

The post will also be established at bus terminals and railway
stations to ensure that children recently arriving from other
villages get the vaccination.

Zelvyno added that the agency had so far registered around
707,000 children under the age of five, who will receive the
vaccinations. "We will continue to update our data to be more
accurate."

She added that the health workers would also make door-to-door
checks for children who fail to show up during the vaccination
days.

She added that the agency was currently in the process of
recruiting health workers to carry out the vaccinations.

Those workers will go through a brief training session with
officers from public health centers.

The administration said that the massive vaccination campaign
would cost approximately Rp 10 billion (US$1.06 million).

Children who have received vaccinations recently are also
obliged to go to a nearby post.

Pediatricians claimed that ideally a baby must receive the
polio vaccination three times in the first year and once every
year up to age five to become truly immune to the polio virus.

Side effects, such as diarrhea and fever, are rare. An extra
vaccination given to children will not do any harm, they also
claimed.

Several polio cases were discovered last month in and around
Sukabumi regency in West Java, which is about 60 kilometers south
of Jakarta. The virus, which usually affects children, likely was
carried by someone, or a group of people, who had returned from
the Middle East, local health officials have speculated.
Indonesian haj pilgrims and migrant workers regularly travel to
Saudi Arabia.

So far, there have been at least eight confirmed polio cases
across the country over the last two months.

The health ministry and its local agencies are required
monitor hospitals and public health centers to find any patients
with acute flaccid paralysis, a symptom of polio.

There are at least 14 other known diseases besides polio,
which can cause such paralysis, such as meningitis.

As of Friday, the Jakarta health agency had reported 23 cases
of acute flaccid paralysis in the last month, but so far none of
those have been confirmed to be polio.

Last year, the administration discovered 50 patients with such
paralysis, but, according to the health ministry, none of those
was determined to be polio.

Indonesia had been declared polio-free a decade after setting
up health service posts, Posyandu, in almost every neighborhood
unit in the country during the administration of president
Soeharto. At those posts, children received regular immunizations
against a variety of diseases, including polio. However, the
budgets for the Posyandu was cut back drastically since the
economic crisis began in 1997, leaving many poor children with no
access to vaccinations.