Nine hundred of the 13,500 personnel have been trained to be vaccinators, while 12,600 others will receive the same training in the near futureJakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia’s National Police is preparing 13,500 personnel from its health service division as vaccinators and 40,336 others as contact-tracers to support the national vaccination and contact-tracing program.
"Nine hundred of the 13,500 personnel have been trained to be vaccinators, while 12,600 others will receive the same training in the near future," National Police chief, Gen.Listyo Sigit Prabowo, told police officers attending a roll-call here on Thursday.
In addition, 40,336 police officers have been prepared for backing the government's contact-tracing efforts at the grassroots level across the country to track down and find people potentially transmitting or infected with the coronavirus.
"Some 40,336 police officers have been prepared as contact-tracers,” he said while instructing police officers in the country to escort and secure 19.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that have so far been distributed to health offices.
Prabowo instructed his men to work closely with their counterparts from the Indonesian Defence Forces (TNI) and health workers to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said his ministry's collaboration with the National Police and TNI is aimed at optimizing Indonesia's contact-tracing efforts at the grassroots level.
Indonesia needs around 80 thousand contact-tracers in villages, and, due to lack of personnel, the Health Ministry has not been able to meet the demand alone, Sadikin revealed. Therefore, it is collaborating with the police and TNI, he added.
On Tuesday, Sadikin had attended a roll-call organized by the TNI to review the preparedness of vaccinators and contact-tracers at its headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta.
At the roll-call, Sadikin reiterated his commitment to curb the spike in the COVID-19 infection rate by collaborating with the TNI and National Police to conduct vaccinations and contact-tracing down to the grassroots level.
"The coronavirus pandemic is a war. That is why we are here to work with the TNI commander and National Police chief to fight this war," the minister remarked.
The objective of the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic must be clear, which is to curb Indonesia's infection rate, he said.
The Indonesian government has been grappling to win the battle against the global pandemic of COVID-19 since it announced the country's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020.
The government has not only enforced restrictions on public activity in the Java and Bali Islands since January 11, 2021, but is also conducting a nationwide vaccination program, which commenced on January 13, 2021.
Since January 26, 2021, Indonesia's COVID-19 infection rate has exceeded one million cases. (INE)
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Translator: Fianda SR, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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