The government reportedly canceled the purchase of a number of Covid-19 vaccines, the Task Force said.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – The government reportedly canceled the purchase of a number of Covid-19 vaccines from foreign companies, namely the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Europe.

In this regard, the spokesperson for the Covid-19 Management Working Group, Wiku Adisasmito, said that the public should wait for an official statement from the Ministry of Health and BPOM.

“It would be better if we wait for an official statement from the institution regarding this decision,” Wiku said when confirmed. Kompas.com, Friday (10/23/2020).

“We need to understand the Covid-19 vaccine business that involves cross-sector and national sectors,” he said.

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He said that buying vaccines is something that has never been done before.

Therefore, it is understandable if there is a change of decision by the government.

“We need to tolerate change of decisions if necessary because they are all directed to the interests of the country. We must make this pandemic an impulse to learn,” said Wiku.

As previously reported, the government has finalized the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines from three Chinese vaccine-producing companies.

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All three companies agreed to provide vaccines to Indonesia in November. The three producers are Cansino, G42 / Sinopharm and Sinovac.

In addition to all three, the government is also reported to be exploring vaccine purchasing cooperation with AstraZeneca.

The news about the cancellation of AstraZeneca purchases was revealed by Achmad Yurianto’s discussion when he was still the General Director of Disease Prevention and Control at the Ministry of Health with IDN Times Y CNBC Indonesia.

Yurianto kepada IDN Times He said Indonesia did not order because AstraZeneca did not want to be liable if there was a failure in the production of the corona vaccine in mid-2021.

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This caused Indonesia to cancel the payment initial payment (DP) worth 250 million US dollars, or about 3.67 trillion rupees.

In the agreement contract (with AstraZeneca) it says that there is no production yet, so the initial payment (paid) will be used to increase production in Thailand. In another clause, if there is a production failure (COVID-19 vaccine), then they should not be blamed. . Yes, we don’t order, “Yurianto said.

Whereas, for CNBC IndonesiaYuri said that what had been signed was not a purchase contract, but an interest in studying the vaccine before a decision was made to buy.

“What has been signed is the LoI (Intention letter), we are interested and we will know more ”, said Yurianto.