Children in school uniforms and toddlers, along with their parents, queued up on Monday (28/11) to get a polio vaccine in the village square of Sigli, Aceh, after at least four children were infected with the highly contagious disease. In fact, ten years ago polio was declared eradicated.
The polio virus was first detected last October in a seven-year-old boy suffering from partial paralysis in Sigli, Aceh. Three more cases have since been detected, requiring a mass information and immunization campaign.
Authorities say the polio immunization rate in the conservative province is much lower than in other provinces in Indonesia. Immunization efforts have been hampered by widespread misinformation, including: the vaccines used do not conform to religious beliefs. The government has also prioritized COVID-19 vaccination since the vaccine became available.
The director general of disease control and prevention at the health ministry, Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, said the campaign that started on Monday aims to vaccinate around 1.2 million children in the province.
Indonesia has about 275 million people, making it the fourth most populous country in the world and also the largest Muslim-majority country.
Aceh is notoriously conservative and is the only province in Indonesia allowed to apply Islamic law or sharia law, which was part of a concession made by the central government in 2006 to end a war with separatists.
False rumors that the polio vaccine contained pork or alcohol, forbidden in Islam, have spread, especially in rural areas. Aceh Health Service chief Hanif said this had made the vaccination effort difficult.
The World Health Assembly adopted a resolution to eradicate polio globally in 1988, and cases of wild poliovirus have declined by more than 99 percent since then, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Polio was completely eradicated in Indonesia in 2014. Two countries where polio is still endemic today are Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the WHO, polio mainly affects children under the age of five. However, people of any age who have not been vaccinated can get the disease, and sporadic cases continue to occur.
Rondonuwu said three other children in Indonesia from the same village as the first confirmed cases were known to have never received basic vaccinations. [em/ka]
