TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma has produced 90.1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses up until Monday. The Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has granted permit for 65.8 million doses of the vaccine, while the rest are in its waiting list.

Citing Antaranews, BPOM secretary and spokesperson Bambang Heriyanto said tht distributions of the vaccine will continue.

From December 6, 2020 up until July 22, 2021, the number of vaccines entering Indonesia reached 151.9 million doses. That consist of 123.5 million in bulk from Sinovac and 22.4 million doses in finished products from AstraZeneca and Moderna.

There are a number of hurdles that have hampered the distribution of these vaccines to regional health agencies, one of them is the quarantine process of both finished and bulk vaccines.

“For example, for Sinovac vaccines in bulk form, Bio Farma must quarantine the vaccines for internal quality tests and wait for a release permit from its quality control (QC) department before entering the fill and finish phase in Bio Farma’s facility,” said Bambang Heriyanto on Tuesday, July 27, to Antara.

After the fill and finish process, the vaccines must undergo quarantine again while waiting for a lot release by BPOM.

Meanwhile, the vaccines imported as finished products, can directly undergo sampling from the BPOM before issuing it for public use.

As of July 26, there were 90.1 million final Covid-19 vaccines produced from 110.7 million doses of bulk form. Indonesia received a total 123.5 million Covid-19 vaccines in bulk.

Read: Not All Sinovac Bulks Processed into Finished Vaccines: Bio Farma

ANTARA