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Jakarta. Indonesia is unlikely to acquire the Covid-19 vaccines produced by the US multinational pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer and a German biotechnology company Biopharmaceutical New Technologies, or BioNTech, as the vaccines require a refrigeration temperature far beyond the archipelago’s logistical capacity. said a senior executive of a state company. the drug company said Friday.
Indonesia was aiming to vaccinate 107 million people by the end of next year. It has obtained commitments to source vaccines from Sinovac Biotech of China, the National Pharmaceutical Group of China (Sinopharm) and CanSino Biotech. However, they have yet to announce the results of their stage III clinical trials.
On the other hand, Pfizer announced earlier this month that its vaccine is 95 percent effective. On Friday, the company applied for an emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), saying it was ready to ship the vaccine within 24 hours of approval.
“In fact, Pfizer just released the results of stage III clinical trials. The effectiveness is over 96 percent. But the vaccine requires a storage temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius,” said Honesti Basyir, president of the Bio Ferma.
“Indonesia does not have such capabilities, and it is dangerous if this vaccine is not stored at the proper temperature. In fact, it will be damaged so that later, when it is given to the community, it will be dangerous,” Honesti said.
In comparison, Moderna’s vaccine needs minus 20 degrees Celsius for storage, while Sinovac vaccines would only need a storage temperature of between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius. Common household refrigerators can generally set the freezer temperature to minus 18 degrees Celsius.
Honesti said that if Indonesia decided to buy the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, the government would need to spend additional funds to overhaul its cold chain distribution network to handle the transport of the vaccine in temperatures between minus 20 and 70 degrees Celsius.
“There are certain criteria that must be met in order for Indonesia to deliver the vaccine more quickly, from development or acquisition, to distribution and vaccination programs to the public,” Honesti said.
Sinovac vaccine
Bio Farma is currently participating with Sinovac in a third stage clinical trial in Bandung West Java for vaccines. The state-controlled pharmaceutical company will produce some of the Sinovac vaccines for the local market once the vaccines gain approval from the Indonesian Food and Drug Control Agency (BPOM).
Penny Lukito, director of the Food and Drug Control Agency (BPOM), said Thursday that she estimated that the Sinovac vaccine would gain emergency use authorization from the agency’s license by the third or fourth week of January, as BPOM needs to evaluate the intermediate outcome of the third stage clinical trial of the vaccine.
“We continue to control quality, efficacy and safety under the [World Health Organization’s] references and guidelines. If the data is complete, the estimate for the vaccine to receive USA is the third or fourth week of January, “he said.
A study published in the peer-review journal Lancet Infectious Diseases earlier this week showed that the Sinovac vaccine could induce an immune response among 700 participants in the company’s phase one and phase two clinical trials. Sinovac would await the results of phase three trials, which were also carried out in Brazil, to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine.
The need for Indonesia
The Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises said Indonesia needed about 236 million doses of vaccine to immunize more than 107 million people between the ages of 18 and 59, or about 67 percent of the Indonesian population in the age group. That was less than the previous goal of 352 million vaccine doses for 160 million people.
The government aimed to acquire and finance 30 percent of the needs, covering more than 32 million people, including the poor and health care workers and Covid-19. The other 204 million would have to buy vaccines themselves from companies like Bio Farma.
For those who had to buy their own vaccine, state-owned minister Erick Thohir said the government made available 88.2 million doses of Sinovac, 30 million doses of Novavax, and 46.8 million doses of the Merah vaccine. Putih, developed by an Indonesian team in Eijkman. Institute of Molecular Biology.
