goodmorningpapua.com – The role of religious leaders and traditional leaders is needed to increase vaccination rates in West Papua Province. This was confirmed by the Deputy Chairman of Commission IX of the Indonesian House, Melkiades Laka Lena.
“We see that the most problematic is the number of vaccinations. The rate of stage I vaccination is only around 50 percent, then phase II vaccination is around 30 percent. So indeed one of the most important notes from this meeting is that we need a strategy or pattern to accelerate vaccination in West Papua,” explained Melki, as he is familiarly called, while visiting the West Papua Provincial Government (Pemprov) in Manokwari, West Papua.
According to the Golkar Party politician, institutions in West Papua have taken various ways to increase stage I and stage II vaccinations, for example by providing free vaccines, distributing basic necessities and door prizes for motorbikes for people who want to be vaccinated.
“There has been a lot of budgets to provide some kind of incentive for people to be vaccinated. However, it seems that it requires very strong collaboration, especially from the side of religious leaders and traditional leaders, so that if the government is assisted with religious leaders and traditional leaders, hopefully the vaccination in West Papua can be even faster,” said this legislator from the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) II electoral district.
Meanwhile, the meeting was attended by the Deputy Governor of West Papua, a Head of the West Papua Provincial Health Office, a Head of Disduknakertrans, Head of BPJS Health for West Papua, a Head of Drug and Food Supervisory Agency and a Head of Regional Office of BPJS Employment in Bali, Nusa Tenggara and Papua (Banuspa).