Parental Vaccine Concerns, The Biggest Obstacle to Toddlers Not Receiving Immunization

Referring to Minister of Health Regulation Number 12 of 2017 concerning the Implementation of Immunization, routine immunization consists of basic and advanced immunization. 

Basic immunization can be given to infants under one year old, followed by advanced immunization for children under two years old to maintain their immunity. 

However, there are still a number of children in Indonesia who have never received immunization for various reasons. 

According to a report by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), 74.43% of children aged 0-23 months in Indonesia did not receive immunization because their parents were concerned about the side effects of the vaccine. 

The next reasons toddlers were never immunized were concerns about the vaccine's contents (41.37%) and doubts about the effectiveness of immunization (39.21%).

Additionally, some parents were unaware of the benefits of immunization (29.63%), unaware of the program (12.09%), and lacked the financial means (6.28%). 

"More socialization regarding immunization must be carried out by the government so that no more toddlers are left unimmunized," wrote BPS in its report Health Statistics Profile 2025.