"In Indonesia, family clusters have become the primary engine of COVID-19 transmission," IDI-Aceh chapter chairman Safrizal Rahman said in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, on Friday.
He asked Acehnese families to join efforts to halt the growth of family clusters in communities and protect themselves from contracting or transmitting the virus by avoiding nonessential travel.
If several members of extended families need to step outside the home for necessary activities, they must strictly comply with the health protocols while venturing outside and after returning home, he advised.
"When reaching home, they must clean themselves," he said while warning that the number of children in Aceh contracting the coronavirus "is high enough”, partly due to growing family clusters.
The COVID-19 pandemic initially hit the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and subsequently spread across the globe, including to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Indonesian government announced the country's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020.
Since then, the central and regional governments have striven incessantly to flatten the nation's coronavirus curve by applying healthcare protocols and public activity restrictions.
But, over the past few weeks, Indonesia has witnessed a new wave of COVID-19 cases, with a significant number of children contracting the virus.
In response, the government has decided to open vaccinations for the 12-17 age group.
According to the COVID-19 task force, coronavirus cases involving children account for 12.6 percent, or more than 250 thousand, of the 2,033,421 cases recorded in the country 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 virus, government data shows. One of every 83 Indonesians dying of COVID-19 is a child, the data further shows.
Children can contract and succumb to 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. (INE)
Related news: COVID-19: Nearly seven thousand senior citizens in Aceh vaccinated
Related news: Aceh prioritizes frontline medical workers for COVID vaccine jab
EDITED BY INE
Translator: Khalis S, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
