Sad News From South Sumatra, Five People Died Because They Have Not Been Injected With Complete Vaccines

Students of SD Negeri 2 Palembang line up to be vaccinated against COVID-19. (ANTARA/Dolly Rosana)

PALEMBANG - Five patients died of COVID-19 in South Sumatra, it is known that some of them have not been fully vaccinated.

Head of the South Sumatra Provincial Health Office, Lesty Nurainy, said that this fact should be a concern from various parties regarding the importance of pursuing the vaccination target for the second dose.

"According to the instructions of the Governor of South Sumatra, currently every regency and city government is asked to pursue the second dose of vaccination because it is still 57.51 percent, while the first dose is 91.44 percent", said Lesty in Palembang, as reported by Antara on Tuesday, February 15.

The South Sumatra COVID-19 Task Force released five people who died from COVID-19 in Palembang, all of whom were known to have co-morbidities and had not been fully vaccinated.

One person died in early February 2022, while four others this week.

Regarding whether the five people were affected by the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Lesty said her party could not confirm because they are still waiting for the results of the sample test by the Ministry of Health Laboratory.

It will take two weeks to know the results of the sample test after delivery, she said.

South Sumatra Governor, Herman Deru, instructed local governments in 17 districts/cities to pursue the COVID-19 vaccination target for a second dose exceeding 70 percent soon.

"There are studies in the world that if the second vaccination is above 70 percent then the area can be said to be safe. I have sent a circular to speed it up", said Herman Deru.

According to him, there were several problems so the achievement of the second dose was not as expected.

“First, it could be the timeframe that has not been entered and chasing targets at the end of last December. Second, the target is to ignore those who don't include their families for the second vaccination", he said.

He hopes that the vaccination target will be visited again by officers to accelerate the second vaccine target above 70 percent.

This effort is highly expected because COVID-19 cases are increasing rapidly nationally, so it requires vigilance from various parties.

Based on data from the South Sumatra COVID-19 Task Force as of February 14, 2021, the realization of vaccination for the first dose reached 91.44 percent and the second dose 57.51 percent of the total target of 6.3 million people.

As for the realization of vaccination for the elderly, the first dose was 68.25 percent, the second dose was 42.62 percent. Meanwhile, vaccination for children 6-11 years old is 76.55 percent for the first dose and 13.81 percent for the second dose.

There are four areas in South Sumatra where the coverage for the second dose is still below 50 percent, namely Ogan Komering Ulu Selatan 42.93 percent, Ogan Komering Ilir 43.21 percent, Ogan Ilir 45.72 percent and Banyuasin 47.40 percent.

Meanwhile, as of February 14, 2022, there were 503 new positive cases in South Sumatra, the highest in Palembang with 379 cases, followed by Musi Rawas Utara with 29 cases and Prabumulih with 23 cases.

There are four districts in South Sumatra that have zero cases of COVID-19, namely Ogan Komering Ilir, Lahat, Pagar Alam, Penukal Abab Lematang Ilir.