Target 1,400 Children, Malang City Health Office Implements Measles CUC

A Puskesmas officer injects a measles rubella (MR) vaccine to a toddler (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Malang City Health Office (Dinkes) carried out a simultaneous catch-up campaign (CUC) for measles at 16 points with a target of 1,400 children, Monday.

The Head of the Malang City Health Office, dr Husnul Muarif in Malang City, East Java, stated that more than a thousand target targets for CUC were children aged between 9 months to 59 months who had not received a complete immunization.

"The target of the simultaneous immunization or catch-up campaign is children aged 9 to 59 months. Our target is 1,400 children," said Dr. Husnul.

He explained that the implementation of CUC is aimed at preventing the spread of measles and pursuing a minimum immunization target of 95 percent to form herd immunity. Of the total 1,400 target targets, as many as 700 children have been immunized as of Friday (3/4).

It is hoped that the target can be realized as soon as today and at the latest, on Tuesday (7/4).

"The 700 children have been immunized against measles rubella (MR) 1 and MR 2. We are still waiting for a provisional report from the hospital and friends at the health center," he said.

Husnul also conveyed that there were many challenges in carrying out measles immunization, even though some time ago they had carried out outbreak response immunization (ORI).

The challenges faced, he said, were targets that did not attend the immunization location and there was still reluctance from parents to include their children in the program.

The Malang City Health Office has prepared strategic steps to overcome this problem, namely by implementing the ball pick-up method to the children's house who have become immunization targets.

It is hoped that this strategy will be able to realize the target of achieving immunization at 95 percent.

In addition, the Malang City Health Office also noted that in 2026 there were 61 suspected measles cases that had been detected.

Husnul said that the measles suspect samples had been sent to the Great Laboratory of Public Health (BBLKM) in Surabaya, East Java, for research.

Until now, his party is still waiting for the results of the measles suspect research conducted at BBLKM.

"If there are indications, it will be brought to the Public Health Laboratory Center in Jakarta for whole genome sequencing (WGS) examination," he said.