T

he government is taking measures to address potentially vulnerable children in the wake of the fake vaccine distribution scandal by slowly rolling out a revaccination program for children exposed to the fake vaccines and ensuring hospitals and clinics destroy used vaccine bottles.

The Health Ministry has scheduled the first revaccination program to take place at a clinic in Ciracas, East Jakarta, owned by Manogu Elly Novita, a midwife who allegedly had a role in fake vaccine distribution through her clinic.

The clinic is one of at least 35 privately operated health facilities that allegedly possessed and used the fake vaccines in Jakarta.

The 35 health facilities were mostly located in East Jakarta.

However, next week’s revaccination program will only be conducted at Elly’s clinic as data relating to the number of children exposed to the fake vaccines in her clinic is already known.

“At first, we were able to identify 48 [children exposed to the fake vaccines from that clinic]. After digging deeper, we now know that there are 197,” the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) director Brig. Gen. Agung Setya said.

The ministry’s director general for pharmaceutical and health equipment, Maura Linda Sitanggang, said collection of data showing how many children had been exposed to the counterfeit vaccines could be done by looking at records kept by health facilities.

“Because the distribution of vaccines is always recorded or reported, from that we can conduct data collection on those who are suspected of receiving the fake vaccines,” she said. “From the data, we will plan the revaccination program.”

Children exposed to the fake vaccines who are under 5 years old can still join the revaccination program.

“As for those who are already older, they can join the student immunization month program,” Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) secretary Piprim Basarah Yanuarso said.

While the total number of children exposed to the fake vaccines is unknown, the National Police have said that the production and distribution of the counterfeit vaccines was “nationwide” and that the illicit activities had been ongoing since 2003.

A joint task force consisting of the Health Ministry, the Drug and Food Monitoring Agency (BPOM) and the National Police is currently hunting the producers and distributors of the counterfeit vaccines.

The BPOM has discovered that at least 37 health facilities in nine regions (Pekanbaru, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Serang, Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Pangkal Pinang and Batam) obtained vaccines from illegal sources.

From the 37 medical facilities, the BPOM collected 39 vaccine samples, four of which were found to be fake after laboratory tests. Another sample is suspected to be fake as its label does not match its content.

“There’s one sample that only contains NaCl [salt]. Then there’s another one with NaCl and hepatitis B vaccine even though the sample is not from the hepatitis B vaccine,” BPOM drug distribution monitoring director Arustiono said.

The hepatitis B vaccines are sold under different labels in order to earn larger profits, according to Piprim.

“We know that hepatitis B vaccines are cheap. Therefore, if they are labeled as vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis [whooping cough] and tetanus, the vaccines can be sold at higher prices,” he said.

However, since the fake vaccines only contained salt or other types of vaccines, they are mostly harmless to children, he added.

“There’s no danger of over dosage from receiving the same vaccines over and over again,” Piprim said. “The main problem is that children are not getting the vaccines they need.”

Besides the revaccination program, the Health Ministry has also issued circular letters to hospitals and clinics to improve their standard operating procedure (SOP).

“So far the SOP is already there but it should be stricter. For instance, there was no obligation to make reports on the destruction of used vaccine bottles. But now there should be reports,” Maura said.
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