Immunizations for Child Health Investment

Information on immunization was obtained at the National Symposium on Immunization 2nd IDAI, which took place on November 19 to 21 yesterday, at the Harris Hotel Kelapa Gading. Dr. Badriul Hegar, Sp.A (K) as the general chairman IDAI (Pediatric Association of Indonesia) in his speech at the press conference said the "National Symposium on Immunization Into IDAI-2 is expected to provide detailed information on immunization to the doctors. Such educational efforts we continually do in order to equip health workers with knowledge and scientific updates that will be applied to the community in an effort to reduce disability and child mortality rates due to infectious diseases. "

According to dr. Toto Vishnu Hendrarto, Sp.A, chairman of the committee of the National Symposium on Immunization 2nd IDAI, "the latest data, the WHO said there were five deaths of 1.4 million people per year due to infectious diseases can be prevented by immunization, for example: 294 000 whooping cough (20 %), tetanus 198 000 (14%) and measles 540 000 (38%). In Indonesia alone, Unicef noted around 30000-340000 children in Indonesia every year die of measles, this means that every 20 minutes an Indonesian child died of measles ".

Meanwhile, according to his own book Childhood Immunization Guide, diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis and measles caused about 4 million child deaths, particularly in developing countries. In addition to deaths, these diseases can also cause children experience physical & mental disabilities.

Dr. Prima Yosephine from the directorate general Kemenkes P2ML RI, said that "immunization is a government priority programs that can be done in all areas of health care. Routine immunization is carried out basic immunization for age <1 year covering about 4.5 million children per year; immunization of school age who accounted for about 12.5 million children per year and TT immunization for pregnant women that includes about 5 million pregnant women. In the future the government would declare a national immunization accelerated movement to accelerate the implementation of immunization targets that had stagnated in recent years. "

Finally, Prof. DR. Dr. Sri Rezeki S. Hadinegoro, Sp.A (K) IDAI immunization task force chairman said that "As the successor nations, Indonesian children must be healthy physically and mentally and immunization is the best option to prevent the disease, therefore the government and parents are obliged to give the best medical efforts for the sake of development of the child. Besides it can be said that immunization is an investment for the future health of children, because prevention of disease through immunization is a way of protection against infection is the most effective and far cheaper than treating a person has fallen ill and if treated in hospital".