DKI Waits For The Ministry Of Health's Directive On Vaccination Screening For Children 6-11 Years

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The DKI Jakarta Health Office is still waiting for the direction of the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) to vaccinate against COVID-19 for children aged 6-11 years.

The Head of Disease Prevention and Control (P2) of the DKI Health Office, Dwi Oktavia, admitted that he needed technical guidelines or instructions for the implementation of the child vaccination. One of the guidelines contains a screening process for children who can and cannot be vaccinated.

"We are waiting for the provisions of the Ministry of Health, whether there is a special screening. So far, screening is for pregnant women, there are certain questions. Are there differences in questions, although not too significant. We need to follow the technical guidelines later," said Dwi when contacted, Thursday, November 4th.

The screening process was carried out shortly before vaccination. Considering that the target of this vaccination is children, Dwi said that usually they will be accompanied by their parents.

In order for the child vaccination process to run optimally, Dwi admitted that the DKI Provincial Government will conduct education and socialization regarding the benefits of vaccines to the parents of the child.

"Usually what we do to parents is various kinds of socialization. Then if there are parents who haven't, we agree that we are trying to raise awareness that the benefits of vaccination are very large to protect people being vaccinated and others," explained Dwi.

Reflecting on the implementation of the vaccination of adolescents aged 12-17 years, the number that has been vaccinated is currently 861,366 people or 86 percent of the capital city. Dwi hopes that the high awareness of vaccinating children will also be similar to vaccinating teenagers.

"In Jakarta, hopefully the awareness of parents, teenagers themselves, and the environment that supports them all have a good understanding of vaccines," he said.