The ministry's director general for regional development, Restuardy Daud, said that the data is from a survey conducted with the Health Ministry and some institutions in January 2024. The survey aimed to gauge tuberculosis handling at the regional level, he added.
"And when we look at this survey, most of those who have yet (to create the units or action plans) have confirmed that they are not well-informed with regard to the policies outlined in Presidential Regulation 67 of 2021, apart from (lack of) regional budget," Daud informed.
He said that coordination meetings on tuberculosis, which will be hosted until September, will seek to address these issues. The meetings are expected to foster awareness as well as the will and commitment to tackle tuberculosis, he added.
According to him, the Home Affairs Ministry is supporting efforts to eliminate the disease, including by issuing circular letters to regional governments, particularly the eight prioritized provinces with high TB incidence.
The eight provinces are North Sumatra, Banten, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, East Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi.
The ministry has also issued a circular letter to regional governments, stressing the importance of devising action plans to tackle the disease, he added.
Daud informed that the Health Ministry survey has been integrated with the Policy Tracker Dashboard as well so that it can serve as a reference to regional governments in formulating policies.
Meanwhile, a member of the Stop TB Partnership Indonesia's management board, Muhammad Hanif, said that the newly launched application, which is updated regularly, can be accessed by everyone to monitor policies on tuberculosis handling.
With so many policies on the national and regional levels, the dashboard can help determine if they are synchronous with one another and monitor their effectiveness, he explained.
"Indonesia TB Joint External Monitoring Mission, or JEM for short, in 2022 had also recommended the creation of a real-time dashboard to check the progress of targets outlined in President Regulation 67 of 2021," he informed.
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Reporter: Mecca Yumna Ning Prisie
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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