Day: August 30, 2022

Indonesia has ordered two thousand doses of the monkeypox vaccine produced by Bavarian Nordic to protect citizens from the virus, Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, has informed.

The country has ordered the vaccines with the assistance of the Indonesian Embassy in Denmark, he informed during a Commission IX Opinion Hearing Meeting (RDP), which was streamed on YouTube on Tuesday.

The Indonesian people are relatively better protected against the risk of contracting a monkeypox infection on account of a smallpox vaccination program rolled out before 1980, he noted.

“People born before 1980 who have undergone smallpox vaccination actually have protection or antibodies against the monkeypox virus because the virus is the same,” he explained.

According to Sadikin, the development of antibodies is one of the reasons why incidents of monkeypox in Asia have been relatively lower compared to Europe.

“This is because in Europe, they eliminated smallpox first. Thus, the protection was stopped relatively more quickly compared to in Asia,” he said.

Medications that are still relevant to regular pox are adequate to medicate monkeypox patients. What is most important is preventing the monkeypox virus from triggering a secondary infection in the form of pneumonia or meningitis, he remarked.

Globally, the death rate of monkeypox patients is 0.02 percent, with 13 out of 48 thousand patients in 94 countries succumbing to the virus. Africa has reported the most patient deaths, the minister informed.

“Their deaths were not due to the monkeypox virus. Infection usually causes secondary infection in the form of pneumonia (lung infection) or meningitis (brain infection),” he explained.

Monkeypox cases in Asia have been most frequently reported in Australia and Singapore. Meanwhile, regions that have most frequently reported monkeypox outside of Asia are the US and Europe.

Meanwhile, 42 suspected monkeypox cases have been reported in Indonesia so far, one of which has been confirmed to be monkeypox, 38 have been confirmed to not be monkeypox, and 3 others are under scrutiny.

Source: Antara News

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said that the first confirmed monkeypox patient in Indonesia has recovered after undergoing intensive treatment at a hospital.

“I have just been informed that the patient has recovered,” he informed while making a presentation on monkeypox during a hearing meeting with Commission IX of the House of Representatives (DPR), which was followed on the DPR’s YouTube channel from here on Tuesday.

On August 20, 2022, the Ministry of Health had announced that Indonesia’s first monkeypox infection had been confirmed in a 27-year-old man in Jakarta. The patient had a history of travel to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and France.

Based on the investigation, the patient had traveled abroad on July 22 and had arrived back in Jakarta on August 8. The patient had started experiencing the initial symptoms of monkeypox on August 11.

After consulting with several health facilities, the patient had arrived at one of the hospitals owned by the Ministry of Health on August 18 and had been confirmed positive on August 19, based on a PCR test.

The minister said that currently, there are two monkeypox variants, namely the West African and Central African variants, in circulation based on the observation of cases detected in 94 countries.

“The Central African variant is more deadly, while the West African variant is less deadly,” Sadikin said.

Based on the result of genome sequencing, the variant found in the patient in Indonesia was the West Africa variant. “Not the one that is deadly like in Central Africa,” the minister added.

In Indonesia, 42 suspected cases of monkeypox have been detected by the Ministry of Health so far. Of the 42 suspects, one was confirmed positive, 38 were confirmed negative, while the other three are still under scrutiny.

Source: Antara News

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto shared the Indonesian government’s experiences in handling the COVID-19 pandemic with students of Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

The government must create a new policy since the health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, had never occurred in Indonesia earlier, the minister noted in his written statement released on Tuesday.

“At that time, we had no policy that could immediately be implemented because we had never experienced a health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic before. Thus, the government must really create a new precise policy to face COVID-19,” he remarked.

Hartarto said at that time, the government had designed and applied the so-called “gas and brake policy” by constantly maintaining the national economic recovery efforts.

In addition, it conducted structural reform that is the third pillar in the framework of the “gas and brake” strategy, he stated.

“I am among the people, who believe that the crisis period is the right opportunity to conduct structural reform for the domestic economy,” he affirmed.

Hartarto said he felt the difference while delivering public lectures to students from Indonesia and Singapore.

It was easier to elaborate on the COVID-19 handling strategy to Indonesian students, as they had experienced the policy in their daily activities, he stated.

However, while addressing foreign students, the minister said he had brought special missions to elaborate on the success of Indonesia, with 17 thousand islands, in distributing vaccines and medicines to the country during the pandemic.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto shared the Indonesian government’s experiences in handling the COVID-19 pandemic with students of Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

The government must create a new policy since the health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, had never occurred in Indonesia earlier, the minister noted in his written statement released on Tuesday.

“At that time, we had no policy that could immediately be implemented because we had never experienced a health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic before. Thus, the government must really create a new precise policy to face COVID-19,” he remarked.

Hartarto said at that time, the government had designed and applied the so-called “gas and brake policy” by constantly maintaining the national economic recovery efforts.

In addition, it conducted structural reform that is the third pillar in the framework of the “gas and brake” strategy, he stated.

“I am among the people, who believe that the crisis period is the right opportunity to conduct structural reform for the domestic economy,” he affirmed.

Hartarto said he felt the difference while delivering public lectures to students from Indonesia and Singapore.

It was easier to elaborate on the COVID-19 handling strategy to Indonesian students, as they had experienced the policy in their daily activities, he stated.

However, while addressing foreign students, the minister said he had brought special missions to elaborate on the success of Indonesia, with 17 thousand islands, in distributing vaccines and medicines to the country during the pandemic.

Source: Antara News

The National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) and five ministries are formulating guidelines for the operational mechanism for accelerating stunting reduction up to the neighborhood level.

“This operational mechanism can mobilize all personnel in the field, where there are components of stakeholders in regions, to unite in driving programs at the village level,” head of BKKBN, Hasto Wardoyo, informed in a written statement issued here on Tuesday.

He said that the guidelines are being formulated with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The stunting reduction guidelines are being formulated so that all personnel in the field can move dynamically and in an integrated manner, especially the Stunting Reduction Acceleration Teams (TPPS) that consist of midwives, Family Welfare Movement (PKK) cadres, and family planning cadres that are the main pillars in the field.

This is meant to support the achievement of the target of reducing stunting prevalence to 14 percent by 2024 soon.

“I hope there will also be integration among family assistants, village assistants, and other cadres under the coordination of TPPS, both in the districts and in the sub-districts, to the village level,” he said.

The BKKBN head further said that the guidelines must also emphasize the importance of data collection and auditing of stunting cases.

Those efforts will allow the identification of families at risk of stunting or prospective brides who want to get married but have the potential of giving birth to stunted children.

Director of Social, Cultural, and Environmental Development at the Ministry of Home Affairs Teguh Hadi Sulistiono said that his party will be responsible for helping villages ensure that families at risk of stunting receive services according to their needs.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration has also expressed its willingness to realize the convergence of services in villages and support several pillars related to the targets that other ministries and institutions must achieve.

Source: Antara News