RI to begin rubella vaccinations soon

Indonesia is set to launch a long- awaited nationwide rubella vaccinations campaign next
month amid a growing movement that rejects immunization as a means to improve human
health.

The health Ministry announched on Wendesday the rollout of the measles rubella (MR)
vaccine, an upgrade of the curently mandatory measles vaccine, which would be administered in
August and September in six provinces on Java simultaneously and during the same period next
year in areas away from the country’s most populated island.

On Java, the campaign is set to vaccinate about 34 million children aged between 9
month and 15 years- the age group that is the most prone to the two diseases of measles and
rubella. Under the scheme, students at various school levels would be vaccineted in August,
while toddlers and children who are not registered as pupils would be injected with the
vaccine in September.

“the giving of MR vaccines is meant to control the transmision of rubella disease,

especially the spread of congenital rubella syndrome [CRS]”, the ministry’s director general
Mohamad Subuh said during a news conference.

Also known as German measles, rubella is a contagious but often mild viral infection.
While generally mild in children, the disease can transmit to pregnant woman, leading to fetal
death or congenital defects, or to CRS.

The virus is transmitted by airborne droplets from the sneeze or cough of in infected
persons. Worldwide, more than 100.000 are born with CRS every year..

CRS transmission in Indonesia, said Mohamad, had gone on mostly under the radar,
but surveillance carried out in several regions had found that the spread of the syndrome was
alarming. For instance, from 1998 to 2013 there were, 1,419 patiens in Yogyakarta suspected
to have CRS.

Having pledged to eradicate rubella disease by 2020 and to meet the target of a
vaccination rate of 85 percent in 2017, Mohamad called on parents to bring their children to
be given the MR vaccine.

“After the introductory period, the vaccine would given annualy to children aged
between 9 month and 17 years. The rollout of the MR vaccine has been long awaited by
parents, especially mothers,” said Mohamad.

Indonesia’s health law makes immunization mandatory for all children. Ten vaccines
have been introduced in Indonesia since 1956, with the latest having been introduced in 2016,
namely the inactivated poliovirus vaccine.
 However, growing resistance in some regions to vaccinations has triggered concerns
in the government about a fresh outbreak of some dissease that were believed to have been
eradicated in the country, such as diphtheria.

In a bid to anticipate negative campaigns, like the one that maintans that vaccines are
not halal because they contain pork, or that vaccination runs counter to the concept of
submitting to God’s will concerning your fate, the ministry presented in the press conference
the Indonsian Ulema Council’s full support for the MR vaccination campaign.

The Rp 893 billion (US$67 milion) MR vaccine campaigns will be funded by state
and regional budgets and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.