Indonesian children targeted in anti-polio drive
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Indonesia on Tuesday kicked off the final round of a massive campaign to immunise more than 24 million children against polio in a bid to stop the spread of the virus in the world’s fourth most populous country.
Unlike a previous immunisation round where the government employed dozens of pop stars and celebrities to lure fearful mothers and their howling infants, the latest was more subdued.
The South East Asian country had been free from polio for a decade, but the disease re-emerged last May and since then the number of confirmed cases has hit 240.
Residents of the seaside district of Sanur on the holiday island of Bali flocked to immunisation posts wearing colourful traditional costumes.
“I wanted to bring my child in for the (polio) drops, so to me it’s OK not to have the music and all that,” said Jero Ratna, 26, dressed in a white traditional shirt and sarong and carrying her infant son.
Health worker Ida Ayu Ligiani said that many unregistered residents turned up with their children at the post, which had quickly exceeded its target.
The U.N.‘s World Health Organisation (WHO) recently praised Indonesia for putting the brakes on its polio outbreak with a national immunisation programme, which began with a first nationwide round of immunisations on Aug. 30.
However, the agency has cautioned that two more rounds are needed to combat the crippling, water-borne disease. No further immunisations have yet been scheduled.
In the greater Jakarta area, residents on Tuesday flocked to hundreds of immunisation posts spread out through the bustling city, which with its sprawling satellite towns has a population of some 12 million.
Several local pop singers turned up to administer drops to children at immunisation posts in the capital.
“I come here of my own will so that my children are healthy, not paralysed,” said Sri Umbarawti, 31, a housewife with a 4-year-old daughter.
Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the government was confident that the campaign would hit most targeted children across the archipelago of 220 million people.
“We have waged a strong public awareness campaign…people are more aware of the danger of polio now,” she told El Shinta radio.
Previous efforts to immunise children had been dogged by fears among some villagers that the oral drops themselves could cause sickness or death.
Polio attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in hours. Children are most at risk.
Last month’s first round of the national immunisation drive reached around 22 million children, or 95 percent of its target. The WHO has said every child missed is a potential threat to the whole country.
The first nationwide round followed two more limited rounds in late May and June in West Java and adjacent provinces, which reached around six million children.
After being polio free since 1995, cases started showing up in villages in West Java province before spreading.
Authorities have said the strain was similar to that seen in Africa and could have arrived in the majority Muslim country via the Middle East through Haj pilgrims.
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