Cak Imin: Vaccines Must Get To Indigenous Peoples, Don't Complicate It About NIK

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muhaimin Iskandar, appealed for the vaccination program to be carried out by targeting all levels of society. Given the reports of many community groups, especially in villages and remote areas, the vaccine has not been touched.

In fact, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) sent an open letter to President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to facilitate access to vaccines for indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups.

"I ask that vaccinations continue to be scaled up and speed up their delivery to regions by targeting all levels of society, including those in villages, because quite a lot of COVID-19 cases have occurred in villages," said Muhaimin, Thursday, July 29.

The chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB) said that the open letter from AMAN showed that vaccination efforts to achieve herd immunity could be hampered by the Regulation of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia No. 10/2021 Article 6 Paragraph 3 concerning the Implementation of Vaccination in the Context of Pandemic Management.

Where the regulation requires the existence of a Population Identification Number (NIK) as a condition for citizens to participate in the vaccination program.

According to Muhaimin, the requirement to have a NIK by name by address in the regulation has made it difficult for indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups. Because according to him, there are not a few indigenous peoples, disability groups, children who are in orphanages, the elderly, the homeless, who do not have a NIK.

"Officers in the field must understand the condition of the community. If there are cases like that, don't mean that the community cannot get the right to be healthy, the right to be protected from potential infection and even become victims of COVID-19," said the man who is familiarly called Cak Imin.

Cak Imin reminded that the NIK issue is indeed a case that must be resolved. On the one hand, vaccination is now more urgent than just a population administrative issue.

"I have checked directly with Biofarma that the vaccine stock is actually available. This must be an attention so that the distribution of vaccines to the regions can be accelerated so that all people can be vaccinated," said the Deputy Speaker of the DPR for the Korkesra sector.

Cak Imin added that vaccination is the most likely way to strengthen the government to reduce the potential for transmission due to the spread of the delta variant. The reason is, seeing the positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia as of Wednesday, July 28, there are still 47,791 people. So the total has now reached 3,287,727 people.

Meanwhile, the total number of recovered patients stood at 2,640,676 people in total, even after the addition of 43,856 recovered patients yesterday. Meanwhile, the death rate continued to climb to 88,659 people after there were additional cases in the last 24 hours as many as 1,824 COVID-19 patients died.

"Therefore, one of the most effective ways to suppress the addition of positive cases and deaths due to COVID-19 is to increase vaccination," said Cak Imin.