Govt Striving to Maintain Supply of Covid-19 Vaccines: Health Ministry
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24 February 2021 10:33 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government keeps striving to maintain the supply of the Covid-19 vaccine. Apart from importing vaccines from several countries, the country was also trying to develop domestic ones.
The Health Ministry's spokesperson for the vaccine, Siti Nadia Tarmidzi, said the national vaccination program was still on track. A total of 7 million doses have been distributed.
She explained that according to the road map, around 1.45 million health workers are targeted to receive the vaccine by April 2021. The government also eyed to inoculate around 21.5 million elderlies and 16.9 million public service workers.
The availability of vaccines, she opined, greatly affects the implementation of the program, and it also depends on the production capacity of the producers.
“We have ordered the vaccine supply, and we are waiting for delivery,” said Siti Nadia in a written statement on Wednesday, February 24.
She said that Indonesia has four ways to meet the supply, namely by buying ready-to-use vaccines, producing vaccines by Biofarma and Sinovac, and becoming a participant of the Covax facility. “And developing the Merah Putih vaccine,” Siti Nadia added, mentioning the home-grown vaccine.
President Joko Widodo or Jokowi said during an online International Conference on Tackling the Covid-19 that Indonesia was fortunate to have secured the supply of Covid-19 vaccines so that it could kick off the vaccination in January 2021.
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