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As COVID-19 persists, what is the future of pneumonia prevention?
PCV immunization is expected to protect 4.5 million Indonesian children annually from the most common cause of severe pneumonia and help prevent thousands of deaths.
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An health worker gives a child the oral polio vaccine during a 2016 National Immunization Week event at state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma’s headquarters in Bandung, West Java.
(thejakartapost.com/Arya Dipa)
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obility restrictions, which aim to limit the spread of COVID-19, have significantly reduced the activities of health workers in Indonesia. Because of disruptions in routine care, risk factors for infection and diseases in children have been missed, and this leads to a greater chance of deaths and illnesses, including those caused by pneumonia.
The persistently high mortality rate in children from pneumonia in the country has continued to become a cause for concern among government officials and health experts.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that amid the focus on the fight against COVID-19, the government needed to improve care services to curb maternal and child mortality, which remains the country’s major challenge. To answer this need, the Health Ministry will increase antenatal care (ANC) visits, ensure ultrasonography infrastructure readiness in every community health center (Puskesmas) and expand immunization coverage at primary health facilities.
“These are our concrete efforts to ensure the maternal and child death rates can be reduced drastically,” Budi said in observance of World Patient Safety Day on Sept. 17.
To boost coverage, next year the government will raise the number of childhood vaccines delivered under its routine immunization program from currently 11 to 14. The additional vaccines are the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for cervical cancer prevention, rotavirus vaccine to reduce acute diarrhea incidences and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) for child protection against pneumonia.
Actually, Indonesia has shown its willingness to introduce and scale up new, lifesaving vaccines, including PCV, which was piloted in regencies across West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and Bangka Belitung in 2017-2018. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the program.
As the pandemic may not end anytime soon, what should we do to ensure the success of our pneumonia prevention efforts?
