The West Java government is aiming to accelerate the coverage of the third or booster dose against COVID-19 among teenagers by carrying out mass vaccinations in early August.
The mass vaccinations will be carried out as part of the 2022 National Immunization Month (BIAN) campaign.
The COVID-19 vaccination service for teenagers is planned to be provided in schools along with immunization services for the 2022 BIAN campaign, head of the West Java COVID-19 Vaccination Acceleration Division, Dedi Supandi, disclosed here Tuesday.
He said that the number of teenagers who have received the booster dose has only reached 207,758, or 4.27 percent of the total 4,867,047 targeted teenagers in the province.
Meanwhile, the number of first dose recipients has so far reached 4,603,093, or 94.58 percent of the target, he informed.
Then, 4,120,320 people, or 84.66 percent of the targeted recipients, have received the second dose, he added.
“The third dose (vaccine recipients) should be further increased,” he remarked.
Supandi said he is optimistic that the achievement of the booster vaccination target would be faster because the central government has made the booster vaccine a requirement for traveling and entering public places.
As part of efforts to boost community immunity against COVID-19, the Indonesian government launched a nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021. President Joko Widodo was the first vaccine recipient under the program.
The government is targeting to vaccinate as many as 208,265,720 citizens across the country under the program.
According to data provided by the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, as of Tuesday, as many as 202,268,728 Indonesians have received the first vaccine dose, 169,882,385 have been administered the second dose, and 54,941,943 have taken the booster dose.
Source: Antara News