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Govt pilots PCV vaccination in West Nusa Tenggara
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For the sake of children's health: The Health Ministry's disease prevention and control director general Mohammad Subuh (second right) attends the launch of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) immunization program in West Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Oct.3. (JP/Panca Nugraha)
T
he Health Ministry, together with the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) administration, launched on Tuesday the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) program in East and West Lombok regencies.
Supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the PCV program will be replicated nationally to prevent pneumonia in babies and children under five years.
The Health Ministry’s disease prevention and control director general Mohammad Subuh, NTB deputy governor Muhammad Amin and West Lombok Regent Fauzan Khalid attended the program’s launch at Gunungsari Community Health Center (Puskesmas) in West Lombok on Tuesday.
“The PCV immunization program in East and West Lombok kicked off today and we will evaluate the program over the next sixth months. The program will be later replicated in all areas across NTB and developed into a national program,” said Subuh.
He said the PCV immunization program was conducted because the rate of pneumonia in Indonesia was quite large. Pneumonia is the second biggest cause of infant deaths in the country after diarrhoea.
Based on 2013 and 2017 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) data, the prevalence of pneumonia in infants under three years in Indonesia stands at 21.7 percent.
"If, for example, the number of infants under three years in our country reached 10 million, there would be 2.1 million infants in that age group that suffered from pneumonia. If their pneumonia was serious, the possibility of death from the illness would be very high. We want to prevent this through the PCV immunization,” Subuh said. (ebf)
