VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

PT Bio Farma targets to produce 3 million reagents for COVID-19 testing using the Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) method or PCR test.

Director of Bio Farma, Honesti Basyir, in a hearing (RDP) with the House of Representatives Commission VI in Jakarta, Monday, explained that reagent production will begin this month with a production capacity of 1.5 million.

"Now we can produce reagents for PCR tests, which we have been overwhelmed by because we are fighting over this product. Starting this month we can produce with a production capacity of 1.5 million tests per month and we are trying to increase the capacity to 3 million per month," he said.

Honesti said they pushed the increase in reagent production for PCR tests to 3 million tests per month to support the government's target of carrying out COVID-19 testing tests up to 80 thousand tests per day.

"That means we need at least 2.4 million-2.5 million reagents per month. That's why we are trying to increase the capacity of 3 million reagents for production," Honesti said.

Apart from starting to produce reagents for PCR tests itself, the pharmaceutical BUMN holding through Kimia Farma has also collaborated with the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and the Ministry of Research and Technology to produce rapid test kits with a production target of 100 thousand tests per month.

They use reagents required for extraction in checking specimens. The reagent contains several chemical compounds to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. (Antaranews)