International Children's Day is celebrated every July 23rd. In 2023, SCOPH CIMSA-BEM KM FK Unand commemorates Children's Day by holding the activity named “CITRUS: Children Immunization in order to increase the Resistance of Pneumonia by SCOPH”, which is classified as a Community Development initiation. This activity aims to reduce the number of pneumonia patients, which is one of the causes of the high child mortality rate in Indonesia. CITRUS promotes the importance of providing Pneumonia immunization to children.
The reason for choosing CITRUS as a Community Development is because of the local prevalence, specifically in West Sumatra, of pneumonia cases in children under five years old in 2022 will reach about 70.8%. This increased rate of pneumonia cases is also accompanied by a degradation in vaccination rates, from 58.8% in 2019 to 56.6% in 2022.
CITRUS has several series of agendas. It is an air campaign (July 23rd, 2023), pre-intervention (September 10th, 2023), intervention 1 (September 16th, 2023), and intervention 2 (September 23rd, 2023).
The main activity carried out in Intervention 1 was counseling provided by the Local Public Health Officer who pre-intervention had received training from Dr. Finny as a representative from the Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Andalas University. To support the success of Intervention 1 in educating the community, we conducted a pre-test and post-test to ensure the level of community knowledge before and after being given the education.
Because the material presented regarding pneumonia is difficult for the public to understand thoroughly, we conducted an icebreaking in the form of an interactive quiz with prizes for basic household necessities in order to increase participants' enthusiasm and prevent boredom during the counseling. Most of the participants who attended intervention 1 were mothers who brought their children and during the series of events, some children cried which disrupted the activities, but this can be overcome by us by helping play and calming children who are crying outside the counseling location.
To maintain the quality of CITRUS activities, in intervention 1 there is a success indicator consisting of a minimum number of 15 counseling participants and an increase in the score to a minimum of 80 from pre-test to post-test. These two indicators of success were achieved in Intervention 1, which indicates that this series of events was successful and went well
Intervention 1 is a form of effort from SCOPH CIMSA-BEM KM FK Unand to reduce cases of pneumonia in toddlers and increase the prevalence of immunization by educating and raising public awareness about the dangers of pneumonia and the importance of immunization in children. Remembering that CITRUS is a Community Development activity, we hope that the people who attend as participants can help make other communities independent next year.
CITRUS
Children Immunization in order to increase the Resistance of Pneumonia by SCOPH
SCOPH
Standing Committee on Public Health
CIMSA
Empowering Medical Student, improving nations health