Vaccination Becomes School Entry Prerequisite in Indonesia

TheIndonesia.id - Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono highlighted that complete routine immunization as a prerequisite for student enrollment is the government's strategy to eradicate measles and rubella by 2023.

"All students are required to receive immunizations through the School Children Immunization Month (BIAS) program to achieve eradication nationally," he noted in a hearing meeting of Commission IX of the House of Representatives (DPR), followed via YouTube here on Tuesday, September 20, 2022.

According to Harbuwono, making complete routine immunization a prerequisite for student enrollment was coordinated with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Joint Decree of Four Ministers.

The coordination aims to ensure that every school includes the BIAS program as a mandatory activity of the School Health Unit so that parents immunize their children.

"The government also needs to ensure that the immunization history of students from infancy becomes mandatory data for all students and complete immunizations of children, who have not completed (immunizations)," he stated.

BIAS is a national program that includes immunizations for students in elementary schools and Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (Islamic elementary school) and is held twice a year: every August for measles, rubella, and human papillomavirus (HPV) immunizations and every November for diphtheria and tetanus immunizations.

The BIAS program targets children aged seven to 12 years. The program's implementation begins with reporting data on target participants from schools to local community health centers to prepare vaccine logistics and vaccinators. The implementation of immunization is facilitated by school administrators.

The Ministry of Health recorded that over 1.7 million babies in Indonesia had not received basic immunizations during the 2019-2021 period. Of the figure, 600 thousand, or 37.5 percent, were from Java and Bali islands.