TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia will be receiving 5 million of Sinovac vaccines and 567,500 AstraZeneca Covid-19 shots on Friday, August 20, as announced by Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi last night.

“The government has purchased 567,500 doses of AstraZeneca and 5 million Sinovac vaccines that will arrive tomorrow,” said the minister on Thursday, August 19.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government will continue to fulfill the national need for Covid-19 vaccines. According to Budi, Indonesia has secured commitments from a number of sources for the supply of 370 million vaccine doses until the end of this year.

The government is also eyeing to add a total of 430 million doses of vaccines to inoculate 200 million Indonesians before 2021 ends.

The vaccine supplies, the Health Minister said, are obtained from numerous ways such as business to business, multilateral agreements, and grants from neighboring countries with close bilateral relations.

As of July, the Health Ministry secured a deal with Pfizer Indonesia and BioNTech SE for 50 million doses of Pfizer vaccines. The initial shipment of 1.5 million doses arrived on Thursday, August 19. The Netherlands government has also sent 450,000 AstraZeneca doses last night from a total of 3 million doses under a dose sharing mechanism.

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