JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) Mohammad Syahril asked the public to immediately carry out a third dose of vaccination or booster to increase immunity so as to avoid exposure to COVID-19.
"This booster is a force to avoid COVID-19. It is hoped that it will increase or increase the body's immunity or antibodies," said Syahril as quoted by Antara, Friday, June 10.
He said the booster dose vaccination rate in Indonesia is still relatively low, so it needs to be accelerated. To date, only five of the 34 provinces have reached 30 percent, namely Bali, DKI Jakarta, Riau Islands, DI Yogyakarta, and West Java.
Therefore, Syahril appealed to the public to carry out booster vaccinations to increase immunity.
"This booster vaccine is needed by the whole community to increase immunity. There are plenty of boosters and they are given free of charge," he said.
Syahril said that more than 416 million doses had been injected for the Indonesian population. Thus, more than 62 percent of the total population has received complete vaccination.
However, he continued, the vaccination achievement was still below the target set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
"The WHO target is 70 percent complete vaccination, which means we still have homework of around 8 percent to meet the group immunity target standardized by WHO," he said.
Meanwhile, regarding the epidemiologist's proposal for the government to carry out the fourth dose of vaccination, Syahril said it was still in discussion.
"We are still discussing the fourth vaccination, there is an epidemiologist's suggestion that the full dose of the vaccine be taken up to three times. This is still a consideration, if this is approved then the fourth booster will be," he said.
Currently, he said, the Ministry of Health is still focused on increasing the number of vaccinations in the country because until now the vaccination coverage is still at 62 percent.
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