DKI Asked To Intensify Child Vaccination, Deputy Governor: We Continue To Strive For Schools Or Islamic Boarding Schools

JAKARTA - The DKI Provincial Government is asked to accelerate the implementation of COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 12 to 17 years. Responding to this, the Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta, Ahmad Riza Patria, admitted that vaccination of children has not been maximized.

"For the children, the target for vaccination is more than one million people. Indeed, currently it has not yet reached 50 percent," Riza told reporters, Tuesday, July 27.

But Riza emphasized that his party will intensify vaccination of children by implementing it in educational institutions for each student.

"But we will continue to try to implement vaccines in schools or Islamic boarding schools," he said.

Previously, Deputy Chairperson 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.

Moreover, Anggara received a report from the Health Office claiming that his resources were limited and that he 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.