Yahoo – AFP,
11 December 2017
Jakarta
(AFP) - Millions of Indonesian children are being vaccinated this week as the
country responds to a widespread diphtheria outbreak that has killed dozens,
officials said Monday.
Indonesia
vaccinates millions to halt deadly diphtheria outbreak
|
Some eight
million children and teenagers across the Southeast Asian nation will receive
the shot to prevent further spread of the disease which is caused by a
bacterial infection.
It can lead
to breathing difficulties, heart failure, paralysis, and even death if left
untreated.
Widespread
incidents of the communicable disease are relatively rare in Indonesia,
although it had the second largest number of reported cases globally from
2011-2015, behind India, according to the World Health Organization.
This year,
nearly 600 cases have been detected in 95 Indonesian communities across 20
provinces, killing 32 people.
The
vaccination programme started from Monday in three of the country's most
populous provinces, including the capital Jakarta, and could continue into next
month, officials said.
The spike
in cases is due to poor public awareness as well as a growing anti-vaccination
movement in Indonesia, the health ministry said.
"Diphtheria
cases have been rare for a long time in Indonesia, so people were no longer
aware of the danger and did not take their children for vaccinations,"
senior ministry official Jane Soepardi told AFP.
Officials
hope to halt the spread before Indonesia hosts the Asian Games next year.
"It
was not scary at all. My teacher told me we all must be vaccinated and it did
not hurt either," Ragil Setiawan, a 10-year-old student at an elementary
school in Tangerang, just outside of Jakarta, said Monday after getting his
shot.
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