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JAKARTA, Jan 2 (The Jakarta Post / ANN): Indonesia received the second shipment of the Covid-19 candidate vaccine from Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, and the government requested authorization for the emergency use of the vaccine within weeks.
The 1.8 million additional doses of CoronaVac vaccine arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Thursday (December 31), bringing the total to 3 million ready-to-use doses Indonesia has received so far after the first arrived. batch on December 6.
However, its effectiveness is not yet conclusive. Authorities have been quick to focus on mass vaccination across the country, which has been fighting an uphill battle against the novel coronavirus with a lack of PCR testing and tracing.
“In the near future, it is expected that 15 million doses of bulk vaccine from Sinovac, which will later be manufactured [into individual doses] by Bio Farma, it will also arrive in Indonesia, “Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said during a virtual press conference in the city.
The Indonesian Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has yet to authorize the emergency use of the vaccine.
However, the Covid-19 numbers continued to rise in the country.
Cases in Indonesia rose by 7,203 in one day to 758,473, and the death toll rose by 226 to 22,555, the Health Ministry said on Saturday (January 2).
According to the ministry, 7,582 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 625,518.
The virus has spread to the 34 provinces of the country.
Specifically, in the last 24 hours, Jakarta recorded 1,894 new cases, West Java 1,167, Central Java 971, East Java 723 and South Sulawesi 590. No more new positive cases were found in two provinces, namely West Kalimantan and Gorontalo.
The government awaits approval in January so that vaccination of 1.3 million medical workers can begin in the same month, and newly appointed Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said he was optimistic about the possibility of getting the green light in “a week or two”.
The BPOM said it expected interim results from ongoing advanced stage CoronaVac tests in Bandung, West Java, in early January. It will also take into account trials conducted by other countries after experts urged the agency to do so, given the relatively small number of participants in the Bandung study, or 1,620 people.
“We have communicated [with the authorities] in Brazil and Turkey, and their data is consistent with the data obtained in Bandung, ”BPOM Director Penny Kusumastuti Lukito said on Wednesday (December 30).
The agency will also implement continuous shipments of this data, allowing the authorization process for emergency use to proceed in stages.
Sinovac has yet to share all the details of its research, and details of trials conducted in other countries have only been published in a fragmented manner.
Last week, a Brazilian health official said trials of the vaccine showed an efficacy rate of between 50 and 90 percent, Reuters reported.
About 13,000 participants participated in the study.
Reuters also reported that Turkish researchers had found that CoronaVac was 91.25 percent effective through interim trial results based on data from 1,322 of the 7,000 study participants.
Budi said Indonesia had ordered 125 million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine, mostly in bulk, and they are expected to arrive in the country through January 2022.
Earlier this week, Indonesia also signed a supply commitment letter with US firm Novavax and British firm AstraZeneca, each for 50 million doses of their respective candidate vaccines. Meanwhile, talks with another US pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, continue. – The Jakarta Post / Asian News Network
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