JAKARTA - Epidemiologist from Griffith University Australia, Dicky Budiman, asked the government to intensify the third dose of vaccination in order to prevent an increase in COVID-19 cases in the country.
"We still have big homework and we must immediately pursue it. It is important for Indonesia to build immunity in the community to reach the third dose," he said, quoted by Antara, Thursday, June 9.
He assessed that the number of the third dose of COVID-19 vaccination, which was not yet high, was one of the factors contributing to the rise in COVID-19 cases.
"As long as the protection is not high, there will be spikes and vulnerabilities," he said.
According to him, antibodies that have been formed after two doses of vaccination in the range of four to six months later will tend to decrease.
In addition, according to Dicky, the potential for reinfection of COVID-19 is still open due to the decline in antibodies in a number of people who have not received the third dose.
"It's not strange because of reinfection, the majority of the population has not been boosted (boost vaccine), that's one of the things that makes cases still happen," he said.
Based on data from the COVID-19 Task Force on Thursday, the number of residents who had received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine reached 47,212,227 people or 22.67 percent of the total residents who were targeted for COVID-19 vaccination.
However, Dicky reassessed that the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks was still relatively under control.
"Even if there is a spike it will not be as big as last year. But if there is a more infectious variant and the coverage of the three-dose vaccination is slow, it can be a different story," he said.
Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 Prof Wiku Adisasmito in a press conference, Wednesday (8/6), stated that the trend of weekly positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia rose by 31 percent again.
According to task force data on May 22, 2022, there were 1,814 positive cases, but now it has increased to 2,385 cases. Daily active cases also experienced an increase of 328 cases or 10 percent.
From the daily active cases reported on June 2, 2022, namely 3,105 cases, now it has increased to 3,433 cases.
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