VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Minister of Research and Technology / Head of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Bambang Brodjonegoro said there will be six versions of the Red and White vaccine for handling COVID-19.

"Because using different platforms, six versions of the vaccine will appear automatically," said Bambang in a virtual press conference held at the Graha BNPB Jakarta Building, Tuesday.

The six versions of the vaccine were obtained from six domestic institutions that developed the Red and White vaccine with different platforms, namely the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Gadjah Mada University, the University of Indonesia, Airlangga University and the Bandung Institute of Technology.

The vaccine made by Eijkman with a recombinant protein subunit platform has reached over 50 percent progress from the laboratory scale and is planned for preclinical testing on animals in November 2020. LIPI develops a vaccine with a fusion recombinant protein platform.

Gadjah Mada University is developing a vaccine with a recombinant protein platform. The Bandung Institute of Technology developed a vaccine with an adenovirus platform, and Airlangga University developed a vaccine with two platforms, namely adenovirus and adeno-associated virus (AAV). 

Bambang said that the development of vaccines with various platforms is actually similar to those carried out by many foreign parties such as AstraZeneca which uses a non-replicating viral vector platform, Moderna which uses the RNA platform.

"But the most important thing is the same production, namely the COVID-19 vaccine," Bambang said.

He said the different platforms used in the development of the Red and White vaccine for COVID-19 depend on the technology mastered by each institution or researcher.

"Six institutions are working respectively, but they will eventually come out with the COVID-19 vaccine and we will facilitate its production," he said. 

Bambang said research institutions or the Ministry of Research and Technology is to produce a prototype or seed for the COVID-19 vaccine, then further development will be the responsibility of PT Bio Farma to carry out clinical trials and production of the vaccine.

Bio Farma also plans to form a consortium with private domestic companies to produce Red and White vaccines with a larger capacity. (Antaranews)