Rural children still waiting for polio vaccines
The Jakarta Post, Bandung, Cirebon/Jakarta
While many children in Jakarta and the main centers of West Java and Banten received oral polio vaccines yesterday, thousands more living in more at-risk areas are still waiting for their two drops.
In the first round of vaccinations on Tuesday, health posts and makeshift clinics were packed with children and their mothers anxious to protect their offspring from the recent polio outbreak, which the health ministry said yesterday had infected 16 people. The second round of vaccinations is scheduled for June 28.
Given balloons and biscuits after the vaccination, the children's fingerprints were taken to show they had received the medicine.
However, an inadequate supply of the vaccine and distribution problems meant many children in remote rural areas missed out on the vaccinations yesterday and some may have to wait almost a month to get them.
Minister of Health Siti Fadillah Supari said the one-day vaccination drive would not be sufficient to vaccinate all of the estimated 6.4 million children under the age of five in the provinces as there were still "pocket areas" that were difficult to access. Certain areas had already extended the vaccination programs, she said.
"But all of the targeted children (for this round) should be vaccinated this week," she said after accompanying Vice President's Jusuf Kalla's wife, Mufidah Jusuf Kalla, to inspect the vaccinations in Campaka, Andir, in Bandung.
At the post in Campaka, one of more than 47,000 free vaccination posts in West Java, mothers were seen lining up from 7 a.m. to get their children vaccinated. Similar scenes were observed in temporary clinics at the McDonald's on Jl. Merdeka and at the Bio Farma office in Jl. Pasteur, both in Bandung.
The government aims to vaccinate more than 4.9 million West Java children in 5,790 villages.
West Java environmental health agency head Fatimah Resmiati confirmed that thousands of children living in 890 villages in 13 regencies that could only be reached by motorcycles or boats had yet to receive the vaccinations. The office would reach them eventually but did not have enough people to do the job in one day, she said.
Children living in remote areas are the most at risk of not receiving earlier vaccinations. One of these remote areas, Girijaya hamlet in Cidahu village, Sukabumi, was where the country's first new case of polio was found and cases have since spread to isolated areas nearby.
In West Java town of Cirebon, an hour away from Bandung, as many as 1,000 health workers went door-to-door to vaccinate children.
Meanwhile, in Depok, workers in a community health center in Limo area complained of insufficient supplies of the vaccine.
"Our officers have to drive back and forth between the local health agency office and integrated health posts to deliver more vaccines as the number of arriving children is more than the 9,000 listed," the head of Limo community health center, Lexiani, told The Jakarta Post. "Some are non-permanent residents."
Lexiani said operational funds disbursed to each community health center were barely enough to cover transportation costs. Her station received Rp 3 million to cover a three-day door-to- door drive conducted by 17 officers and some 150 volunteers.
Bio Farma public relations head Elvyn Fajrul Jaya Saputra said on Tuesday the vaccine producer had disbursed 13,140 doses of polio vaccine to all regencies and cities in the three provinces.
Last reports from the ministry have declared 16 positive polio cases and 34 positive carriers with 58 suspected stool samples yet to be analyzed.