Polio campaign goes door to door

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Health workers and officials were busy out persuading mothers to take their children for two more drops of polio vaccine on Tuesday, days before the planned national polio vaccination campaign restarts (PIN).

Lina, 52, head of an integrated health service post in Pangkalan Jati, South Jakarta, said she and fellow workers had been knocking on doors in the neighborhood to encourage mothers to take their children to vaccination posts.

The government is planning for two new rounds of polio vaccination for 24 million children under five after finding cases of polio-prompted acute flaccid paralysis around of Banten, Jakarta and West Java, where the first index case was found in April.

"Learning from our last vaccination drive, we are intensifying personal approaches to parents to ease their worries about the side-effects of the vaccines," Lina said. "Twelve activists here have gone to some 300 houses in this area."

The health ministry reported that at least 6.5 million children under five came to receive the oral polio vaccine in the first round of vaccination on May 31.

However, in the second round vaccination on June 28, the number dropped by some 700,000, prompted by reports from the Legal Aid Institute for Health (LBH Kesehatan) claiming that at least 61 babies had fallen ill as a result of the substandard polio vaccine.

Official investigations later showed the illnesses were not related to the vaccines and the World Health Organization and the health ministry have assured the public the vaccines are safe.

Lina said during the week's door-to-door campaign, her team had encountered many mothers who were worried about the negative effects of the vaccine. "However, we will do our best to make sure that all children here are vaccinated," she said.

A mother of a three-year-old girl living across the street from Lina's house, said she was concerned about the impact of the vaccine on her toddler.

"I know that they say it is safe, but as a mother, I have the right to worry about my daughter's health," she said. She would make sure that her daughter was healthy before taking her for the vaccination, she said.

Ministry of Health director for immunization Jane Supardi said that the individual approach to parents was proving effective.

"From our survey, mothers said that they would come to the appointed posts when they were asked, either by a neighbor or an officer," she said. The most resistance to the vaccinations was coming from Banten and West Java, she said.

Meanwhile, in Depok, officers in a community health center in Limo are using cold storage boxes to transport the vaccines to the appointed posts.

"It is easier for us to approach poor families and ask them to come and have their children vaccinated than approaching residents in wealthy housing complexes," center head Lexiani said.

Most wealthy mothers told health workers their children had already received proper vaccinations or said they preferred to take them to hospital for new vaccinations.

"My son has received a complete vaccination. Why should I take him again?" said Renita, a residence of Cinere, Depok. "I believe that too many chemicals or substances given to children will not be good, even though they say it is safe to give more than the required dose."