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Health workers in protective suits carry a COVID-19 patient amid the coronavirus pandemic in Jakarta, Indonesia, on December 13, 2020. Antara Photo / Fsauzan / via Reuters
JAKARTA – Indonesia will provide free coronavirus vaccines to its citizens when the world’s fourth most populous nation begins its inoculation program, President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday, adding that it would receive the first vaccine to reassure people about safety.
The sprawling developing country received its first shipment of vaccines, 1.2 million doses of Sinovac Biotech from China in early December, but is awaiting emergency use authorization from its food and drug agency.
Another 1.8 million doses are expected to be delivered in January and the government previously said that priority would be given to health workers in Java and Bali.
“After receiving suggestions from many people and after recalculating the state financial calculations, I can say that COVID-19 vaccines for citizens will be free,” the president said in a video statement from the state palace in Jakarta.
The decision comes as the country of 270 million faces a growing coronavirus outbreak and also following social media campaigns urging authorities to provide vaccines for free.
The president said he had instructed the finance minister to reallocate expenditures to fund the program.
Amid concerns about vaccine safety and whether the vaccines would be halal, a problem for many in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, the president said he would be the first recipient.
“This to provide security and confidence to people that the vaccine is safe,” he said.
He did not specify which vaccine he would receive, but a phase III trial of Sinovac’s CoronaVac with 1,620 volunteers is underway in the Indonesian city of Bandung in West Java, but the results have not yet been published.
Ten months after officially registering its first case of the new SARS-CoV-2 virus, Indonesia has recorded more than 629,000 confirmed infections and 19,000 deaths, the highest number of cases and deaths in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia is seeking to secure 246.6 million doses of vaccines and has also been in negotiations with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and the global COVAX vaccine program.
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