Health Minister: Global Need for Covid-19 Vaccine Reaches 11mn Doses
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12 January 2021 13:04 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the world was experiencing a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines due to the high need of vaccinations.
“Countries around the world are fighting for the vaccine,” said Budi in his first hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) Health Commission at the DPR Building in Jakarta, Tuesday, Jan. 11.
The current world population is 7.8 billion as of January 2021. The World Health Organization (WHO) targeted 70 percent or around 5.5 billion to get the shot. Each person needs two doses so 11 billion doses are needed, Budi added. However, the production capacity has thus far reached 6.2 billion doses.
“There is a lack of facilities for vaccine production,” said Budi. As a result, major vaccine producers were increasing production capacity at their factories.
With this condition, WHO predicted that it would take 3 to 3.5 years to complete the vaccination target of 5.5 billion people. “That's what we want to speed up,” Budi remarked, adding that the global number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in the world reached 10,000 per day.
The Indonesian government eyed 70 percent of the population or 182 million individuals to be injected with the Covid-19 vaccine.
Also Read: Indonesia Requires Registration, Verification for Covid-19 Vaccine
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