VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 3 - Vice Health Minister Dante Saksono said Indonesia has received the fifth batch of COVID-19 vaccines from China's Sinovac Biotech.

"Alhamdulillah (thank God), today we got 10 million (doses of the) bulk vaccine. This bulk vaccine is raw material that Bio Farma will turn into (ready-to-use) vaccines," he said at an online press briefing in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The first and second batches of the vaccine received from Sinovac comprised 1.2 million and 1.8 million doses of ready-to-use vaccines, respectively, while the third and fourth batches comprised 15 million and 10 million doses of semi-finished vaccines, respectively.

Indonesia has received 38 million vaccine doses from the Chinese biopharmaceutical firm since the time the first batch arrived in the country on December 6 last year.

The government plans to use the vaccines to support a mass free vaccination program targeting 181.5 million of the country’s total population of 267 million.

"Another 185 million (doses of the) vaccine from Sinovac will be delivered in stages," Saksono informed.

Bio Farma, which has secured a certificate of good drug production from the Food and Drug Control Agency (BPOM), will process the bulk Sinovac vaccines to make finished vaccines.

Indonesia has ordered COVID-19 vaccines from several sources: 125 million doses from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd; 100 million doses from US-Canada's Novavax; 100 million doses from UK’s AstraZeneca; 100 million doses from Germany-US' Pfizer; and, 16-100 million doses of free vaccines from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) through multilateral cooperation. (Antaranews)