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Indonesia plan to halt vaccinations
Indonesia's health minister wants to end vaccinating children against meningitis, mumps and some other diseases because she fears drug companies are using the country as a testing ground.
Siti Fadillah Supari - who first drew widespread attention by boycotting the World Health Organisation's 50-year-old virus sharing system in 2007 - said she wanted "scientific proof" that shots for illnesses like pneumonia, chicken pox, the flu, rubella and typhoid were "beneficial".
"If not, they have to be stopped. We don't want our country to be a testing place for drugs, as has been the case in Africa," she said.
Ms Supari said she still would advocate immunisation against measles, polio, tetanus, hepatitis B and tuberculosis.
Her statement comes at a time when Indonesia is struggling to contain outbreaks of preventable childhood illnesses.
Chronic funding problems and chaotic decentralisation efforts since the 1998 ousting of long-time dictator Suharto have forced many local clinics in the poorest parts of the nation to scale back operations, reducing the time and money spent on education and routine immunisations.
The number of cases of measles, tuberculosis and other diseases has skyrocketed. Polio briefly re-emerged after a decade-long absence in 2005.
The UN children's agency said it would wait until the country officially changes its immunisation policy before commenting.
"We are continuing to support the government as technical partners in their implementation of the evidence-based programmes," said Anne Vincent at Unicef.
Copyright ? 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
Indonesia plan to halt vaccinations
Indonesia's health minister wants to end vaccinating children against meningitis, mumps and some other diseases because she fears drug companies are using the country as a testing ground.
Siti Fadillah Supari - who first drew widespread attention by boycotting the World Health Organisation's 50-year-old virus sharing system in 2007 - said she wanted "scientific proof" that shots for illnesses like pneumonia, chicken pox, the flu, rubella and typhoid were "beneficial".
"If not, they have to be stopped. We don't want our country to be a testing place for drugs, as has been the case in Africa," she said.
Ms Supari said she still would advocate immunisation against measles, polio, tetanus, hepatitis B and tuberculosis.
Her statement comes at a time when Indonesia is struggling to contain outbreaks of preventable childhood illnesses.
Chronic funding problems and chaotic decentralisation efforts since the 1998 ousting of long-time dictator Suharto have forced many local clinics in the poorest parts of the nation to scale back operations, reducing the time and money spent on education and routine immunisations.
The number of cases of measles, tuberculosis and other diseases has skyrocketed. Polio briefly re-emerged after a decade-long absence in 2005.
The UN children's agency said it would wait until the country officially changes its immunisation policy before commenting.
"We are continuing to support the government as technical partners in their implementation of the evidence-based programmes," said Anne Vincent at Unicef.
Copyright ? 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
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