DPR Values The 2022 Paid Vaccination Plan Prone To Deviations

JAKARTA - Member of Commission VII of the DPR, Mulyanto, asked the government to be careful in imposing a paid vaccination policy. This is because the policy is prone to irregularities with various models, one of which is the misuse of free vaccines for paid vaccines.

"When vaccination coverage is still low, with a limited number of vaccines, vaccine disparities will be dangerous because there will be a mix-up from free vaccines to paid vaccines. Therefore, the paid vaccination plan should be postponed until conditions allow," said Mulyanto, Friday, August 27.

The Deputy Chairman of the PKS Fraction in the House of Representatives for Industry and Development said that paid vaccinations can only be carried out if the government has completed its obligation to vaccinate all people. Thus, said Mulyanto, the paid vaccination is an option for anyone who needs additional vaccines.

"Now I think the time is also not right. Currently, many people need vaccines. So the state must serve it well. Not even make it a business commodity," said Mulyanto.

This PKS politician considered that the government's reason for wanting to implement a paid vaccine to speed up the herd immunity process was also inappropriate. According to him, this paid vaccination has the potential to reduce public interest in vaccines.

Therefore, he said, it is possible that if the paid vaccination is implemented, the free vaccination service will be reduced. As a result, people have no choice but to participate in paid vaccines.

"If this condition occurs, I'm worried that vaccination will not be faster, it will be slower. Whereas currently Indonesia needs to increase the number of vaccination coverages. Because our vaccination ratio is still far from the WHO standard," said Mulyanto.

Previously, while attending the DPR plenary meeting, Tuesday, August 24, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani revealed the Government's plan to implement paid vaccination in 2022. This is intended to pursue the target of herd immunity.

Based on daily information from Our World in Data, the percentage of the Indonesian population that has been vaccinated is 21 percent. 9.4 percent of them had received the "complete" vaccine while the remaining 12 percent had just received the first dose of vaccine.

This figure is far behind vaccination coverage in India, which reaches 33 percent of the total population. Where 24 percent had received the complete vaccine and 9.6 percent had just received the first dose of vaccine.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's vaccine speed is still below 1 million people per day. Meanwhile, India has reached 4.6 million people per day.