VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Development of the Red and White vaccine to handle COVID-19 remains a priority in the National Research and Innovation Agency's research and innovation activities, according to  the agency's head, Laksana Tri Handoko.

Handoko emphasized that developing the ability to self-sufficiently create and develop the Red and White Vaccine was much more important than having that vaccine. The agency head stated through his official statement received here on Tuesday.

Handoko affirmed that the ability to develop vaccines independently would be an important asset, since so far, vaccines in Indonesia were products from overseas.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has left the agency and other institutions with no choice but to conduct research on COVID-19 vaccines.

The Red and White Vaccine is one type of vaccine that is expected to be produced nationally.

The agency is building two main infrastructures to support the development of the Red and White vaccine: a production infrastructure, with GMP standards, and a phase 2 preclinical test facility in the Cibinong Science Center area in Bogor, West Java.

Handoko expects the two infrastructures to be ready by the end of the first quarter of 2022, so that they could immediately be used to develop vaccines for humans and animals in future. Thus, they were not limited to the Red and White COVID-19 vaccine.

He also expects the vaccine to be completed soon, so the public can utilize it.

However, manufacturing and developing vaccines was not an easy task, as no one in Indonesia had the experience of creating vaccines from scratch, he pointed out.

All stakeholders involved in the creation process were working hard to develop potential COVID-19 vaccines to help meet domestic vaccine requirements, but all of them do require a collaborative process and efforts to realize it, he stated.

As many as seven teams were involved in the development of the Red and White vaccine in the national consortium.

Acting Head of the Life Sciences Research Organization at the National Research and Innovation Agency, Iman Hidayat, stated that Airlangga University had made the swiftest progress in developing the Red and White vaccine.

The university, along with PT Biotis, completed conducting preclinical testing on monkeys. Hidayat delivered the statement here on Saturday, January 15.

The seven teams in the national consortium for the development of the Red and White vaccine comprised Airlangga University, University of Indonesia, Bandung Institute of Technology, Gadjah Mada University, Padjadjaran University, the former Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), and the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology.

"Each team develops the Red and White vaccine with different methods, ranging from vaccines based on virus inactivation to vaccines based on recombinant proteins," he concluded.  (Antaranews)