Preventing Malaria During The National Sports Week In Papua, Ministry Of Health Performs Fogging In All Venues

VENUE PON PAPUA / PHOTO VIA ANTARA HO KEMENTERIAN PUPR

JAKARTA - The government through the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) is spraying or fogging all venues for the Papua National Sports Week (PON). This is done to prevent the threat of malaria caused by mosquito bites.

"In the last 2 weeks, the Ministry of Health and the Papua Health Office has carried out fogging throughout the PON competition venues and the athletes' residences to ensure that they are clean of mosquitoes that can transmit malaria," Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said at an online press conference regarding the implementation of the Papua PON, Monday, September 27.

In addition to preventing the threat of malaria, the government also continues to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Moreover, this sports competition was held in the midst of a pandemic.

Budi said this prevention was carried out by screening the spectators who would be present at the sports venue. The former Deputy Minister of SOE said the screening process was carried out starting from the manual method to using the PeduliLindungi application.

"Regarding health care, we have collaborated with the COVID task force and the Health Office there as well as the PON organizing committee so that how to use PeduliLilindungi or other manual screening tools in order to ensure that the audience who enters is limited to 25 percent are those who are healthy and do not transmit the new cluster," he said.

Not only screening, but Budi also ensured that the government will try to boost the number of vaccination receipts, especially in the five Regencies and Cities that host the PON this time.

The five regencies/cities where the Papua PON will be held are Jayapura City, Jayapura Regency, Mimika Regency, Merauke Regency, and Keerom Regency.

Budi said the achievement of vaccination slowly showed a fairly good number of increases. However, it is still necessary to increase the number of vaccinations in several Regencies and Municipalities, especially for the second vaccine.

"As a report, the five cities that organize the PON have a total target of 648.622 vaccinations, 406.531 doses of vaccine have been reached. So 62.7 percent. The second vaccine has been carried out in 253.474 people or 39 percent," he concluded.