The health ministry said in its statement it has dispatched 39 health professionals from various fields to help handle the health crisis in Asmat District, Papua.

The Indonesian military (TNI) has sent 53 personnel including paramedics, besides medical equipment, vaccines and 11,100 packages of instant food, it added.

"We are handling the situation," Health Minister Nila Moeloek told Reuters, blaming similar previous incidents on several factors.

Read: Measles Outbreak 39 Health Professionals Dispatched to Papua

"There is a link between the malnutrition and (catching) other diseases," Moeloek added. "If you're undernourished, you will get those diseases."

The ministry said it was still trying to estimate the number of deaths but reports said on Monday at least 61 infants had died.

Many Papuans criticise the central government in for neglecting Papua and instead being too focused on the densely-populated island of Java.

The province has also had a long-running and sometimes violent separatist movement since it was incorporated into Indonesia after a widely criticized U.N.-backed referendum in 1969.

Catholic priest and rights activist John Jonga, blamed the crisis on a lack of vaccinations and a switch from more nutritious tubers to rice as a staple food.

He said he had voiced questions over Jokowi's policy of sending aid to Palestine and Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority, rather than to Papua at a recent seminar at the Indonesia Institute of Sciences in the capital Jakarta.

"We are lacking health facilities," Jonga said. "That's why in the seminar I asked why the president was busy with Myanmar and building a hospital in Gaza. Whereas in Papua, we have problems, difficulties with drugs and medical workers."

One minister denied the extent of the health crisis had taken the government by surprise.

"We have anticipated this since September 2017," Puan Maharani, the coordinating minister for human development, told reporters.

"The location in Asmat is not easy to monitor. We have asked the health ministry to coordinate for this (health crisis) to be evaluated."

REUTERS