In the initial stage, the authorities were expected to administer vaccine jabs to 100 children through coordination with the city's health office, communication and information office, and the education office.
"We have screened 100 children, and we have given information concerning their parents' approval to receive the COVID-19 vaccine shots today," Widyastuti, chief of the Jakarta Health Office, stated here on Thursday.
The children will receive the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China's Sinovac that has been mostly administered by the Indonesian government since the start of the national vaccination program on January 13, 2021.
The first vaccination was conducted at state-run senior high school SMAN 20 in Central Jakarta by applying a cluster system divided into four groups.
The Ministry of Health has set a target of allocating 7.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed in the capital city until August 2021.
The vaccination program is expected to expedite recovery in the handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia. According to the COVID-19 task force, the number of coronavirus cases involving children reached 12.6 percent, constituting over 250 thousand of the total 2,033,421 cases, as of June 23, 2021.
Data from the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection shows that as of June 2, 2021, children from the 6-17 age group constituted 5.6 percent of the total COVID-19 cases, while 2.3 percent of children up to the age of five years were affected by COVID-19.
One out of every eight Indonesians exposed to COVID-19 is under 18 years of age, and children fall in the category that is at risk of succumbing to the coronavirus, the data indicated. One of every 83 Indonesians dying of COVID-19 is a child, the government data further shows.
Children can contract and die of COVID-19 based on the presence of comorbidities, such as obesity, tuberculosis, and hypertension, according to chief of the Indonesian Pediatric Society (IDAI), Aman Pulungan. Related news: Indonesia looks to India for lessons amid second COVID wave
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Translator: Livia Kristianti, Fardah
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
