T

he Health Ministry will continue to recommend children receive immunization against measles, polio, tetanus, hepatitis B and tuberculosis, a senior official said Sunday.

Ministry spokesman Lilik Sulistyowati said her office considered vaccinations against other diseases such as meningitis and mumps "safe", but "not mandatory" for Indonesian children.

"Of course those vaccinations *other than the recommended five diseases* are safe, because they are promoted by legitimate health organizations," Lilik told The Jakarta Post by phone.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said she wanted to cease programs vaccinating children against meningitis, mumps and some other diseases because she feared foreign pharmaceutical companies were using the country as a testing ground for drugs. "We don't want our country to be a testing place for drugs, as has been the case in Africa," she said last week.

The health minister is no stranger to controversy, raising eyebrows in 2007 when she boycotted the World Health Organization's 50 year-old virus sharing system.

Siti has in the past also demanded "scientific proof" that vaccinations for illnesses like pneumonia, chicken pox, the flu, rubella and typhoid were "beneficial".

But according to Lilik, the health minister made those statements during a discussion with medical practitioners and lecturers.

"The minister said those things during a debate and the statements must be interpreted according to the context," she said without elaborating.

She added that the debate should be on resiliency on the nation. Regardless, the Minister's statements have caused a stir once more in health circles.

After Soeharto's downfall in 1998, many clinics in the poorest parts of the country resolved to cutting back operations, including immunization programs heavily promoted nationwide before the fall of the New Order regime.