Health Ministry Talks of Unequal Distribution of Covid-19 Vaccine

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Spokesperson for the Covid-19 Vaccination of the Health Ministry, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, disclosed reasons why the Covid-19 vaccine has not been evenly distributed in a number of regions. She outlined two reasons, namely limited stock and technical production in the country.

“The real problem is not all vaccines have arrived. We need 426 million doses. We have received 130 million doses so far,” said Nadia in a written statement on Monday, July 26.

According to her, 68 million of the total 130 million doses available in Indonesia have been distributed to all regions.

As many as 50 percent of them were distributed to seven provinces reporting a high number of cases on Java and Bali. The rest were distributed to 27 provinces outside Java and Bali.

“The distribution will automatically be different. The available vaccine supply does not match our needs, because the vaccines arrive in stages,” she added.

The number of vaccines distributed to health care facilities in the regions, she went on, was also adjusted to vaccine stock reports up to the injection speed.

Based on the Health Ministry data, 61 million people have received the vaccines. “Of the 68 million doses distributed, there must be some left maybe around 5 percent,” she opined.

Nadia said Bio Farma still has around 65 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines with 30 million of which are in the form of raw materials or being produced for the next four weeks. “30 million more doses are in the process of quality testing by the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM),” she said.

Read: Jakpro Holds Covid-19 Vaccinations for People of Jakarta, Non-Jakarta

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