"The vaccination rate for children aged six to 11 is still not maximum, as many obstacles are still encountered in the (practice). Nevertheless, vaccine shots are administered daily," Head of Disease Prevention and Control at the Probolinggo District Health Office, Mujoko, stated in Probolinggo on Saturday.
Mujoko noted that they continued to apply the same method to vaccinate these children by going door-to-door and also hosting at schools. The latter method was conducted through coordination with the school management, and the program must be approved by the parents. The children that participated in vaccination at schools must be accompanied by their parents or guardians.
Mujoko spoke of the target to vaccinate 102,777 children by March 2022.
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The health office head expressed optimism that the execution would go according to the initial plan. Yet some challenges persist, such as people fearing vaccines, as they believed in hoaxes claiming that vaccines would alter the body negatively.
"(As a result of bias due to) hoaxes, parents forbid their children to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. That was (one of the) challenges, but it is not as bad as at the start of the child vaccination, as the parents' awareness (of vaccine importance) is increasing day by day," he remarked.
Based on the KPC-PEN dashboard data regarding vaccination for children aged six to 11 years in Probolinggo District as of Tuesday, February 8, the first vaccine dose child recipients totalled 53,529, or 52.08 percent.
On the other hand, 1,205 children, or 1.17 percent of the total targeted children, had received the second dose of vaccine.
Acting Head of Probolinggo District, Timbul Prihanjoko, had begun a vaccination program for students aged six to 11 years at the Dungun 1 State Elementary School, Tongas District, on January 13, 2022.
As many as 35,536 doses of the Sinovac vaccine were supplied during the vaccination, and in the near future, an additional 71 thousand Sinovac vaccine doses will be made available.
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Translator: Zumrotun S, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Suharto
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