Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government would hold a mass polio vaccination in the Pidie area, Aceh, next week following the emergence of a polio case designated as an Extraordinary Incident (KLB).
Indonesia has actually been released from polio and received a polio-free certificate from WHO in 2014. This polio-free status is still valid today.
"That's why next week we will come specifically to Pidie to carry out a mass vaccination for polio," Budi said in Jakarta, Antara, Friday, November 25.
Budi invites the public to increase the coverage of polio vaccinations in order to prevent the resurgence of diseases that have not been experienced in Indonesia for a long time.
polio disease has resurfaced because there are a number of regencies and cities in Indonesia where vaccination coverage is very low. This happened because it was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic which made people reluctant to travel to public places.
"But it can also be too negative news that makes people misunderstand the importance of vaccination," he said.
The Aceh Health Service said the total number of polio cases or two-type lay paralyzed in the province was four, one of which was still undergoing therapy at the Zainoel Abidin Regional General Hospital (RSUD) Banda Aceh.
The first case is undergoing physiotherapology, while three more cases are at home, because they are asymptomatic.
The three children infected with the polio virus are the same as the first child, which has absolutely no complete base immunization history, so there is a high risk of contracting the virus.
On Thursday, the General Chairperson of the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) dr. Piprim Basarah Yanuarso, Sp.A(K) appealed to the public not to hesitate to give polio vaccines to children because the risk of vaccine side effects is much lighter than being exposed to polio.
Side effects that can occur after the child gets vaccinated are usually fever or swelling.
However, that risk is still much better than that of a child being paralyzed and having to be supported by a stick or doing activities in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
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