"One of the risk factors of diphtheria is lack of immunization," the ministry's technical communication staff for health transformation, Ngabila Salama, stated in a talk show on Monday.
Salama underscored the need for people to be wary of the disease, as healthy asymptomatic individuals can also transmit the bacteria and infect other members of the public.
Hence, vaccination for most people in a certain group is deemed crucial in order to create herd immunity, she emphasized.
"Usually, diphtheria occurs more easily in areas with low and uneven vaccination coverage. Vaccination is important to protect ourselves and the people around us," she remarked.
Group immunity is projected to protect a group of people with low immunity, such as the elderly, pregnant women, children, and people with comorbidities, she stated.
Hence, Salama appealed to the public to immediately seek diphtheria vaccination as a preventive measure.
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According to Salama, the diphtheria vaccine is administered in stages, starting from babies, aged two, three, and four months, and then 18-month-old toddlers, children in grades 2 and 5, and booster vaccine for women in the age bracket of 15-39 years.
Diphtheria vaccination is one of the 15 types of free immunization provided by the government to all Indonesian children to prevent disease in the future, she noted.
"Immunization is an easy and free way to prevent 30 infectious diseases and epidemics, with effectiveness of above 95 percent," she revealed.
The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) also stated that an effective way to mitigate diphtheria bacterial infections is by carrying out complete diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) immunization.
"DPT immunization must be carried out from the start, and it must be completed for babies," BRIN's head of preclinical and clinical medical research center, Harimat Hendarwan, remarked.
Hendarwan stated that through immunization, the potential for diphtheria infection can be prevented, especially if people have also received the DPT booster vaccine every 10 years.
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Translator: Sean Muhamad, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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