JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The World Health Organization has declared Indonesia’s polio outbreak officially over, following nearly three years of intensive response efforts, officials said Friday.
Indonesia has remained largely polio-free as the highly contagious disease was declared eliminated in the country in 2014. But eight years later, an outbreak emerged in the country's conservative Aceh province, prompted by a dangerous combination of consistently low routine immunization and unhealthy environmental conditions. In 2021, only 50.9% of infants born in Aceh received polio vaccination.
Officials say that polio immunization rates in Aceh are well behind the rest of the country, with efforts hampered by widespread disinformation that the vaccine is incompatible with religious beliefs, among other things. The government has also been prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations since they became available.
Over the next two years, cases appeared in the provinces of Banten, West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Maluku, Central Papua, Highland Papua and South Papua, prompting the mass immunization and information drive. Nearly 60 million additional doses of polio vaccine were administered to children during the response.
The last confirmed polio case was in South Papua province on June 2024. Since then, no polio has been detected in children or in the environment, prompting WHO to declare the outbreak over on Wednesday.
In a joint announcement on Friday, Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin credited the success to “the dedication of health workers and the commitment of parents and communities," while WHO's Western Pacific Regional Director Saia Ma'u Piukala called the achievement “a critical step toward global eradication,” while calling for continued vigilance.
“I urge all our 38 countries and areas to remain vigilant. One day polio will be just a memory. Until then, we vaccinate,” Piukala said.
With the end of the polio outbreak, Sadikin vowed to keep Indonesia polio-free through strengthening routine immunization, enhancing surveillance, cross-sectoral collaboration and community support.
“Every child deserves protection,” he said. “We cannot be complacent, however. The risk of polio remains, especially with the gaps in immunization coverage in several provinces in Indonesia.”
Indonesia's response included two rounds of nationwide immunization using novel oral polio vaccine type 2 and improved routine coverage. The second dose of inactivated polio vaccine rose from 1.9 million children or 63% in 2023 to 3.2 million children or 73% last year, aided by the introduction of a hexavalent vaccine which expected to reduce the number of injections children receive and accelerate the development of immunity to various diseases.
“This shows what is possible when communities, health workers and partners unite,” said UNICEF Indonesia Representative Maniza Zaman, "We must keep up the momentum, so every child receives the immunization they need to grow up healthy and free from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases.”
FILE - A medical worker gives a vaccine to a boy during a polio immunization campaign at Sigli Town Square in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, Nov. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Riska Munawarah, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk's space exploration company has filed preliminary paperwork to sell shares to the public, according to two sources familiar with the filing, a blockbuster offering that would likely rank as the biggest ever and could make its founder the world's first trillionaire.
A SpaceX IPO promises to be one of the biggest Wall Street events of the year, with several investment banks lining up to help raise tens of billions to fund Musk's ambitions to set up a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit and possibly one day send a man to Mars.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the confidential registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
SpaceX did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Exactly how much SpaceX plans to raise has not been disclosed but the figure is reportedly as much as $75 billion. At that level, the offering would easily eclipse the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco raised in its IPO in 2019.
The offering, coming possibly in June, could value all the shares of SpaceX at $1.5 trillion, nearly double what the company was valued in December when some minority owners sold their stakes, according to research firm Pitchbook, before an acquisition that increased its size.
Musk owns 42% of the SpaceX now, according to Pitchbook, though that figure will change with the IPO when new owners are issued shares. In any case, he is likely to pierce the trillion dollar mark because he is already close. Forbes magazine estimates Musk's net worth at roughly $823 billion.
In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts and hardware into orbit, SpaceX owns Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company. The company also recently brought under its roof two other Musk businesses, social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and artificial intelligence business, xAI, in a controversial transaction because both the seller and the buyer were controlled by him.
SpaceX has become the biggest commercial launch company in its industry, responsible for sending payloads into orbit for customers across the globe, but has also benefited from big taxpayer spending. That has raised conflicts of interest issues given that Musk was the biggest donor to President Donald Trump's campaign and is still a big backer.
In the past five years, SpaceX won $6 billion in contracts from NASA, the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies, according to USAspending.gov.
Among current SpaceX owners is Donald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son. He owns a shares through 1789 Capital. That venture capital firm made him a partner shortly after his father won the presidency for a second time and has been buying up federal contractors seeking to win taxpayer money ever since.
The White House and Trump himself have repeatedly denied there are any conflicts of interest between his role as president and his family's businesses.
FILE - A Falcon 9 SpaceX heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
FILE - Elon Musk attends the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship, March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
