Talking About Lebaran Homecoming, The Ministry Of Health Asks Residents Tofill The First Booster Vaccine

Photo by Tubagus Andri Maulana on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health has made the first booster dose of vaccination a thing that needs to be fulfilled by the community ahead of the implementation of the Lebaran 2023 homecoming. So that the rate of COVID-19 cases can remain under control.

"Regarding (the second booster) as a travel requirement or not, we will see what the study looks like, because the important thing is the first booster first," said Head of the Communication and Public Service Bureau of the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, confirmed from Yogyakarta, Friday, February 10, as reported by Antara.

Nadia said the interval for administering interdose vaccination is an average of 6 months from the time of injection. The first booster is important, because generally people who receive full dose or two doses of primary vaccination in Indonesia have been more than the set time limit.

"Later the team will study it, whether the booster needs to be a requirement for Eid homecoming travel. At least the first booster with a primer twice first, there is a lot of time," he said.

Reporting from the report of the COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard of the Indonesian Ministry of Health, the total recipients of the second dose of vaccination as of February 9, 2023 reached 174.80 million doses (74.49 percent) which had been injected out of the total target population of 234.66 million targets. Of that number, only 69.66 million doses (29.69 percent) of booster 1 vaccine have been injected into recipients of dose 2.

Meanwhile, the number of recipients of the second booster injection to date is only 1.78 million more doses (0.77 percent).

"The condition for granting the second booster is the person who has been boosted first," he said.

Nadia said the second booster as a condition for homecoming pedestrians needs to consider the interval of the previous injection, considering that the implementation of the Lebaran homecoming is expected to take place around mid-April 2023.

This means that the majority of people still need a time lag for the first booster injection to the second booster vaccine.

"Currently, the first booster is only 60 million doses and it takes 6 months to get a second booster. If it's not the first booster, it takes him another 6 months. Through Eid al-Fitr," he said.

However, to ensure this, the Ministry of Health is still conducting a number of stages of study with a number of related parties for the booster vaccination policy as a requirement for homecoming.*