All Hospitals in Bandung City Open Polio Vaccine Service

Even so, according to the Head of the Bandung City Health Service (Dinkes), Anhar Hadian, this achievement is still below the target set by the central government, which is 95 percent.

"Under these conditions, all district city governments in West Java are carrying out a second round. In areas that are already above 90 percent, the implementation of the second round of polio sub-PIN was carried out last May 15," explained Anhar in a dissemination of polio sub-PIN, Wednesday, May 24, 2023.

He added, there are a number of areas whose achievements are still below 90 percent, including the city of Bandung. Therefore, the implementation of the second round of sub PINs will only start on May 22-June 2, 2023.

"The condition for areas that do not reach the target is indeed a risk because of the potential for transmission of type 2 polio. Polio that is currently being vaccinated is a type of polio that is not routinely given vaccinations. So for the implementation of this sub PIN it does not look at the status of the previous polio vaccination, " he explained.

Therefore, all children under five, regardless of their previous polio vaccination status, must still be given polio vaccination in two rounds. So apart from pursuing the second round of vaccination, his party must also meet the target of the first round of vaccines.

He said, the results of the evaluation of the implementation of the first polio sub-PIN, out of 30 sub-districts in the city of Bandung, only two sub-districts were able to achieve the target of above 95 percent. Cibeunying Kaler 97 percent, and Sukajadi 96 percent. While the rest are still below the target.

According to Anhar, one of the factors is because the city of Bandung is a metropolitan city and the mobility of its population is very high.

"The factor is because the target set by Pusdatin is too high. We have tried to write to the Ministry of Health to change the target, but the Ministry of Health does not want to change the target with several considerations," he said.

Therefore, to increase vaccination achievements, the Bandung City Government has made several strategies for this second sub PIN. One of them is by instructing all hospitals to open vaccine posts.

"In the city of Bandung there are 39 hospitals. During the first round we only involved 7-8 hospitals. Each hospital can contribute up to hundreds of targets," he said.

His party also asked all hospitals to open polio vaccine posts as often as possible and for as long as possible according to the toddler examination schedule at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Acting Mayor of Bandung Ema Sumarna conveyed another strategy is to improve the quality of "sweeping" regional colleagues, puskesmas, sub-districts, sub-districts and posyandu cadres.

"Several sub-districts carried out 'sweeping' plus plus, combing all the rooms where there were toddlers. The results turned out to be extraordinary. Many toddlers who were there were probably not recorded by the Posyandu, such as in apartment areas, boarding houses and elite residential areas," said Ema.

He added, the Health Office also needs to find out more through hospitals and pediatricians in the city of Bandung to comb through vaccination numbers that could have been missed.

"It could be that so far there are certain people who don't get the vaccine at the posyandu. But, the vaccine goes to big hospitals or pediatricians. Because not all people in certain circles want to take advantage of the health facilities provided by the government, such as posyandu," he said.

Even so, according to Ema, polio vaccination is one of the government's efforts to prepare the best quality human resources in the future.

"In the toddler phase, we have to focus on the construction of their health. Polio is one of the efforts to prepare toddlers to become optimal human resources," he added. (din)**

Head of the Bandung City Communication and Informatics Agency

Yayan A. Brilyana