Minister Of Health Budi Gunadi: I Give Up Using Data From The Ministry Of Health

JAKARTA - Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin said he would not use Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) data to provide COVID-19 vaccination to the public.

Budi Gunadi prefers to use data collected by the General Election Commission (KPU) for administering vaccines to the public. The reason is that the KPU data has just been updated.

"I have given up, I don't want to use the Ministry of Health's data anymore. Crossing the Dukcapil, I took the KPU data. We took the KPU manual because yesterday it was just yesterday that the election was in West Java so I think it's the most current based for over 17 years," Budi said in a webinar, Citizens' Dialogue: Vaccines and Us, West Java Economic Recovery and Transformation Committee, quoted on Friday, January 21.

Budi then explained a number of problems amid the COVID-19 vaccination program in the country. First, there is insufficient storage or cold chain for the COVID-19 vaccine because there is an accumulation of vaccines from other diseases and this is due to miscalculations.

"Why can it be full, miscalculated. This is still a province," he said.

The former Deputy Minister of BUMN said that so far Indonesia has provided regular vaccines such as vaccines for tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, and others with doses of up to 130-200 million.

It's just that, because currently the pandemic is happening, this vaccine is finally unused and causes the COVID-19 vaccine to not enter the cold chain. "So when we send it, it's full. Because there are items already stored and it becomes chaotic," he said.

The next problem he touched on was related to health facilities for the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"I don't want to be cheated twice. It's said that in aggregate there are enough health centers and hospitals to inject. Government hospitals don't have to involve the local government, the private sector is not enough," he said.

However, when investigated further, it turned out that the capacity of health facilities in districts and cities was not sufficient. He said that there are indeed several cities that are sufficient but uneven.

"When I look at Puncak Jaya, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, 3,000 days have just been completed, eight years have just finished. Because there are no health facilities available," he said.

"So now I have seen by regency, municipality, I will improve the vaccine strategy," he concluded.