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.
Government ramps up fight against tuberculosis amid concerns over economic impact
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A nurse prepares a Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis during a national immunization for children program at an integrated services post in Banda Aceh, Aceh on June 9, 2022. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
T
he government plans to run clinical trials of several vaccines to curb the surging number of cases of tuberculosis (TB) this year, amid concerns the disease might affect economic growth, ministers said on Monday.
Indonesia has seen TB cases spike during the past few years, with the Health Ministry estimating there were over 1 million cases in 2023, compared with around 820,000 in 2020.
In 2022, deaths from TB in Indonesia reached around 134,000, the second-highest in the world after India.
Three-quarters of the patients were in the productive age group and 45 percent of all patients did not work, raising concerns that the spread of the disease is hurting economic activity, Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy told a government meeting with provincial leaders, Reuters reported. He did not provide an estimate of the impact on growth.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said Indonesia planned to conduct a trial of a TB vaccine developed by global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline in July, involving 2,500 people. The vaccine development is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
A clinical trial for a vaccine made by China's CanSino Biologics is also expected this year, Budi said.
Read also: Government hails new TB detection system for improved reporting
