VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. The Medan city government has secured 60 thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for senior citizens and their companions, which will be administered under a drive-through vaccination program.

"As of today, some one thousand elderly people have been inoculated," Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution informed at the opening ceremony of the city's drive-through vaccination program for elderly residents on Wednesday.

The city’s ex-Polonia Airport area is being used as the drive-through vaccination site where senior citizens and their companions can get vaccinated, he added.

So far, three thousand elderly people have registered on the Halodoc application for the drive-through vaccination program, Nasution informed.

Halodoc and the Medan city administration share the view that the enthusiasm of the city's residents for getting vaccinated is high, he said.

"Therefore, we are going to extend this vaccination service in our endeavor to have 70 percent of our population vaccinated," he remarked.

Indonesia has been striving to win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic since March last year.

To stem the spread of the disease, the government has rolled out a nationwide vaccination program since January 13 this year.

As of Wednesday (April 7, 2021), the Indonesian government has recorded 4,482,930 people receiving their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The second-dose recipients include health workers and frontline public service workers. The government also revealed that 9,132,545 people have obtained their first shots.

The Health Ministry estimates a time period of 15 months will be required to vaccinate about 70 percent of the country's total population under the national program.

"We need 15 months to accomplish it. The time-frame for conducting the vaccination is counted from January, 2021 to March, 2022," the Health Ministry's spokesperson for the vaccination program, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated recently.

During the period, the government is targeting to inoculate at least 181.5 million people, including 1.3 million paramedics and 17.4 million public sector workers, in 34 provinces, she informed.

According to Tarmizi, the first phase of the government's immunization program has been divided into two periods: January-April, 2021 and April, 2021-March, 2022.  (Antaranews)