Child COVID-19 Vaccination Still 44 Percent, DKI Provincial Government Asked To Pursue Target

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of Commission E of the DKI DPRD, Anggara Wicitra Sastroamidjojo, asked the DKI Provincial Government to pursue COVID-19 vaccinations for children. This is because the current vaccination for 12-17 year olds is only 44.2 percent.

In fact, the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, was given a target by President Joko Widodo to complete vaccination for 7.5 million residents by the end of August.

This member of the PSI faction of the DKI DPRD asked Anies to authorize the Education Office to be the organizer of vaccinations in schools so that the acceleration of child vaccination can be achieved.

"Cross-sector cooperation between the Health Office and the Education Office should not only be sharing a database of children in Jakarta that becomes a reference for vaccination participants," Anggara said in his statement, Tuesday, July 27.

Moreover, Anggara received a report that the Health Office admitted that its resources were limited and that it was overwhelmed to pursue vaccination targets for the general public.

"The burden of the Health Service is too much, it is impossible to catch up on vaccinations in 2000 public schools in Jakarta," he said.

For this reason, the Education Office is asked to be proactive in deploying implementing units to record and register children's vaccination participants in their respective areas, including educating parents about the importance of vaccination during this pandemic.

"Don't just pursue face-to-face learning, but don't try to provide protection to students through vaccination," said Anggara.

Meanwhile, the Health Office can be involved in the stage of providing vaccines and health workers on vaccination day, but for the non-medical stage it can be taken over by the Education Office.

"We've run this a number of schools in Jakarta, this is very possible, can not all be submitted to the Department of Health alone. The interest of the school and students is also very high,” he said.