VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto revealed that the government has disbursed Rp 3.3 trillion down payment for the Covid-19 vaccine.

"The total fund is Rp37 trillion for the multiyear program," he said at a press conference in Jakarta, on Friday.

On that occasion, Airlangga also revealed that the recovery rate in Indonesia reached 71.7 percent or higher than global, and the mortality rate reached 4.2 percent.

Meanwhile, until now, several Covid-19 vaccine candidates are still in the testing phase in Indonesia, amidst producers from several countries in the world competing to find the vaccine.

In carrying out the third phase clinical trial of the vaccine, the government will collaborate with the Chinese company, Sinovac. While its production is carried out by state-owned company Bio Farma.

Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir recently revealed that around 160 million Indonesians are prioritized to get the vaccine, with about two doses per person.

When the clinical trial is over, the vaccine candidate will be registered with the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) around January 2021.

In addition, the government is also developing its own vaccine, the Merah Putih vaccine by the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology.

The Merah Putih Vaccine is scheduled to complete animal trials by the end of 2020.

After the test is successful, they will submit the vaccine to Bio Farma for preclinical and clinical trials. (Antaranews)