VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian government is striving to meet national COVID-19 vaccine needs by restocking vaccines, an official has said.

With the arrival of the 116th batch of vaccines, four million Sinovac doses are ready to be distributed to regions across the country, director general of information and public communication at the Ministry of Communications and Informatics, Usman Kansong, said in a statement issued on Tuesday.



"The Sinovac vaccine again arrives in Jakarta in the form of a ready-to-use vaccine. This time, 4 million doses arrive this afternoon," he added.



Since the beginning, Indonesia has received Sinovac vaccines in two forms—finished form and in the form of raw materials that need to be processed (bulk) further, he noted.



Indonesia has so far received 100 million Sinovac doses in finished form and 153 million Sinovac doses in bulk, Kansong said.



The raw materials received from Sinovac have been processed to make 124.4 million finished vaccine doses, he informed.



"So, in total, we already have 330,378,350 doses of vaccine from various brands in Indonesia, both in bulk and finished form," Kansong explained.



The COVID-19 vaccine will always be made available for the public until the vaccination target is achieved and all people in Indonesia have received the vaccine, he affirmed.



The government is committed to providing COVID-19 vaccines to protect the health of all levels of society from the coronavirus, he said.



Kansong also reminded people who have not been vaccinated to immediately take the shot to protect themselves, their family, and the whole community.



"Currently, there are 125 million people in Indonesia who have received the first dose of vaccination and 79 million of them have completed the vaccination," he informed.



Kansong urged the public to follow the health protocols amid the sloping cases of COVID-19 since several countries are experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases.



For this reason, joint efforts from all parties are needed to prevent a spike in cases or a third wave of infections in Indonesia, he added.



"Stay alert and learn from the experiences of countries in Europe that are experiencing a spike in cases," Kansong cautioned. (Antaranews)