CKG screens 73.8 million Indonesians by July 2026: ministry

3 hours ago

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Health Ministry stated that as of July 2026, Free Health Checkup (CKG) had screened 73.8 million people, comprising 62.7 million people screened at primary healthcare facilities and communities and 11.1 million children screened at schools.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said here on Tuesday that the government is aiming to screen some 130 million people in 2026. This year’s program also focuses on follow-up treatment for three health risk factors of cardiovascular diseases in order to improve national life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE).

“Indonesia was at 72. Now, it has increased to 74. In 2029, the target is 76 years,” Sadikin said, adding that the three risk factors are high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol.

The ministry’s Director General of Primary and Community Health, dr. Maria Endang Sumiwi, said that participation had increased across all age groups in 2026, including 1.5 million newborns and 4.5 million preschool children.

“For school-age children, there are 14.6 million participants, compared to 33 thousand last year. Among adults, as of July last year, there were 12 million. This year, we have already reached 43 million,” she noted.

Moreover, 9.7 million elderly people have participated in the health screening this year, compared to only 2.4 million last year. She noted that provinces with some of the highest CKG coverage include Gorontalo, Southeast Sulawesi, Central Java, Banten, and Lampung.

Speaking about follow-up treatment, which has become a focus of the initiative in 2026, Sumiwi noted that preliminary data from three primary healthcare facilities (puskesmas) showed that the proportion of patients receiving treatment for hypertension ranged from 43 to 62 percent.

Despite the higher coverage, challenges remain, including low public awareness of the initiative, reluctance to undergo screening due to fear of the results, and a lack of time to participate, she stressed.

Sumiwi reminded the public to participate in CKG every year, as annual screening can identify health conditions that were not present or detected during the previous year’s examination.

For example, around 36 million people who did not have diabetes participated in CKG in 2025. Of those, 8.39 million underwent screening again in 2026, and 188 thousand were found to have developed diabetes, she noted.

Meanwhile, University of Indonesia (UI) public health expert Iwan Ariawan said that if current conditions are left unaddressed, an estimated 5.9 million cases of hypertension could progress to cardiovascular disease by 2035.

“But with CKG, we can reduce that by 30 percent,” he remarked.