TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
City needs Rp 70 billion to buy diphtheria vaccine
Change Size
Stay health! A baby cries as a health worker administers an anti-diphtheria vaccine at a clinic in Cibinong, Bogor regency, West Java, on Dec. 5. (Antara/Yulius Satria Wijaya)
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has said the city needs at least 2.9 million vaccines to overcome the diphtheria outbreak.
“We will get 1.2 million vaccines from the Health Ministry, whereas we need 2.9 million vaccines,” Anies said Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.
The vaccines from the central government would be used to cover the needs in North and West Jakarta, he explained.
The Jakarta administration will procure the remaining vaccines itself. “We will need Rp 70 billion (US$5.1 million) of our own funds,” he said.
Jakarta Health Agency head Koesmedi Priharto called the current diphtheria outbreak in the capital an “extraordinary occurrence,” as the number of reported cases had more than doubled from 17 infections and one fatality in 2016 to 25 infections with two casualties so far this year.
“We will conduct outbreak response immunization (ORI) in five mayoralties and in the Thousand Islands regency,” he said, adding that ORI meant that all people in the neighborhood of infected individuals are vaccinated. (dpk)
