Elderly citizens are included in a group that is vulnerable to severity and deaths due to COVID-19, Ministry of Health's spokesperson, Mohammad Syahril, noted here, Tuesday.
To this end, since November 22, 2022, the government implements a policy on second booster vaccination to provide additional protection to the elderly.
Second booster vaccination is undertaken at least six months after elderly citizens received the third dose or first booster dose COVID-19 vaccination that is given to those, who already received the first and second dose of vaccination.
The implementation of second booster vaccination aims to reduce the risk of severity or death as a result of COVID-19 in the elderly population.
"Expediting both primary and booster vaccination should be done, given that most of the COVID-19 patients who died are those that have not been vaccinated, the elderly population, and people with comorbidities," Syahril remarked.
He also underlined the importance of intensifying COVID-19 vaccination, primarily in regions with primary and booster vaccination coverage below 70 percent from the vaccination target.
Earlier, Head of the Indonesia Doctor Association's COVID-19 Task Force Erlina Burhan noted that people, who have not received the complete dose vaccination, are more vulnerable to being infected by the Omicron XBB subvariant of the SARS-CoV-2 corona virus.
According to data from the COVID-19 Handling Task Force on Monday, 66.62 million Indonesians had already received the third dose or booster COVID-19 vaccination.
The number of people administered the booster vaccine increased by 150,432 from the previous day.
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Translator: Hreeloita D S, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Sri Haryati
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