The teams will provide vaccines, medication and food aid to the districts’ residents, particularly infants and children.
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Brunoto untuk Kompas
An infant sits next to his mother on a raised walkway in front of their house in Adat village, Pulau Tiga district, Asmat regency, Papua. Dozens of infants in Asmat regency died in December 2017 from malnutrition and infectious diseases because they had not received basic immunization.
MIMIKA, KOMPAS – The Asmat regency administration in Papua has deployed four medical teams to the five districts that have been hit by “extraordinary occurrences” of measles and malnutrition. The teams will provide vaccines, medication and food aid to the districts’ residents, particularly infants and children.
Asmat Regent Elisa Kambu, interviewed in Mimika, Papua, Wednesday (10/1), said that the four teams were deployed on Tuesday. The five districts, which can only be accessed by sea, are Swator, Fayit, Pulau Tiga, Jetsy and Siret.
Elisa said that every team consisted of six Asmat regency representatives, three medical staff and two crewmen, and would be providing measles vaccines and food aid to the local people. “The team will be on duty till Saturday (13/1). They will collect data on the number of people suffering from measles and malnutrition,” he said.
As previously reported, 13 children under the age of 5 died in December 2017 in Asmat regency. The cause of death is believed to be malnutrition and infectious disease (Kompas, 10/1).
An Agats diocese team discovered the situation during a Christmas service on Dec. 23-25 in the villages of As and Atat in Pulau Tiga district. The travel time from the Asmat capital of Agats to As and Atat is around three hours by speedboat on the river.
Elisa said the Asmat administration had been trying its best to provide regular immunization services through 16 puskesmas (community health centers) in the regency. However, most local residents were not yet aware of the importance of immunization, and refused to take their infants and children to be vaccinated.
“I admit that the incomplete implementation of the immunization program is one of the causes of the extraordinary occurrence of measles in Asmat. Therefore, I and the entire administration will try to expand the scope of the immunization,” Elisa said.
He also hoped for assistance from the Health Ministry in the form of specialist doctors, such as obstetricians. The regency had signed an agreement with the Health Ministry on the provision of medical personnel in December 2017.
“The Asmat administration has sufficient budget to bring in a medical team. However, we are finding it difficult to bring in medical personnel like specialists. Even the Agats hospital has only two specialist doctors,” Elisa said.
Mass check-ups
Aside from sending the medical teams to the five districts, the local health agency held a mass health check for all children under the age of 5 in Asmat. This move was intended to contain the measles outbreak, which began in October 2017.
According to the Asmat Health Agency, two children in the Pulau Tiga district died from measles on Monday (8/1). At the same time, the Agats examination found 12 children with measles and seven children who were suffering from malnutrition. The Asmat Population and Civil Registration Agency’s data shows that Asmat has an infant population of 8,395, with 4,292 male and 4,103 female infants.
Steven Langi, head of public health at the Asmat Health Agency, said that the mass health check also provided treatment in the form of antibiotics and vitamin A supplements for children who had contracted measles.
The Health Ministry’s Papua director, Usman Sumantri, who is also head of human resources development and empowerment at the Ministry, is still awaiting a case report from Asmat regency. The report will be submitted to the Health Ministry in stages.
Once the problem is clearly identified, the readied Health Ministry teams will go into the field to implement intervention measures. For example, if the teams find that the issue is related to malnutrition, they will send additional food aid for 90 days.
The ministry’s director general for public health, Anung Sugihantono, added that the intervention would cover both management and prevention. If the problem was indeed related to malnutrition, additional food aid will be sent. Prevention, meanwhile, will be carried out through a number of methods, including improving nutrition for pregnant women, infants and children.
