Three-year campaign to rid RI of polio

Three-year campaign to rid RI of polio

JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to launch a massive
nationwide immunization program to eradicate polio by the year
2000.

Minister of Health Sujudi, who announced the ambitious plan at
the Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday, said the immunization
program will be launched in mid-September and repeated at the
same time in 1996 and 1997.

Sujudi said that evidence from other countries has shown that
polio can only be eradicated through massive immunization
campaigns and not on a sporadic basis.

Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, the Philippines and China all
managed to eradicate polio through successive nationwide
immunization campaigns. Both North and South America have been
polio-free since 1991 after 10 years of campaigns, Sujudi said
after meeting with government officials and non-governmental
organizations involved in the program.

The program is part of the World Health Organization's plan to
completely eradicate polio from the face of the earth. If the
global campaign is successful by the year 2000, two diseases will
have been eliminated from the world in just two decades. Small
pox was eliminated in 1980.

Sujudi said some 21 million children in Indonesia will receive
polio immunization shots free of charge during the first phase of
the campaign, which will also immunize against tetanus and
measles.

The government has allocated an annual budget of Rp 45 billion
(US$20 million) for the program. Local administrations and donor
agencies are also expected to help raise funds, though he did not
elaborate on the total cost of the program.

Official figures show that nearly 90 percent of all children
in Indonesia have been vaccinated against polio, and that the
number of cases dropped drastically from 773 in 1988 to only 30
in 1993.

However successful, Sujudi warned that until the disease is
completely eliminated, an outbreak of polio is still possible.

The minister said tetanus is still prevalent in Indonesia
because only 60 percent of children have been given immunization.
The immunization against measles have reached 90 percent of all
children, he said. (29)