Picturing diphtheria outbreak in Indonesia using national annual report data: What are the lessons learned?

Abstract

Diphtheria is one of the vaccine preventable diseases. Due to the advances in medical technology and vaccine availability, this disease should no longer be a health problem. Its outbreak which reached the highest point in 2017 has opened our eyes that diphtheria remains a major threat, is highly contagious, and leads to morbidity and mortality. The large number of diphtheria cases also indicates that the protection of immunization in the community has decreased. This paper aims to discuss the usage of the reliable official big data namely the Indonesia Health Profile from year 2004 to 2017 released by the Ministry of Health to describe the magnitude of diphtheria in Indonesia. Providing big open data related to infectious disease is very challenging. The released data should be managed properly so it can be used by the government and related institutions to generate better policies and recommendations in order to end the outbreak and provide adequate protection against diphtheria amongst Indonesian community.