VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert said on Thursday the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine should allow the world to gain progressive control over the disease next year.

“Life as we used to know it, I think that’s very, very possible but we will have to continue with the hygiene, physical distancing. Vaccines do not equal zero COVID. Adding vaccines to our current measures will allow us to really crush the curve, avoid lockdowns and gain progressive control over the disease,” Mike Ryan told RTE television in his native Ireland.

“We need to be absolutely aware that we need to reduce the chance that we could infect someone else in just organising households carefully around the Christmas festivities. The usual thing in Ireland of 15 people in the kitchen peeling potatoes and basting turkeys, that’s not what we should be doing.” (Reuters)

Head of the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) Penny K Lukito said the Sinovac vaccine met the requirements to receive a halal label.

"Based on Biofarma and Indonesian Ulema Council's inspections, the halal aspect has been fulfilled," said Penny in an online press conference on Thursday.

Penny said MUI had examined the halal aspect of the vaccine. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Ulema Council is discussing the COVID-19 vaccine fatwa at the MUI National Conference held on November 25-27.

She said BPOM continues to monitor the progress of the Sinovac vaccine trial, which is entering phase III clinical trials in Bandung. BPOM collects Sinovac clinical trial data which will be combined with data from other countries, such as Brazil.

For this reason, she said the BPOM had not yet drawn a conclusion so it gave an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the COVID-19 vaccine even though it had obtained data on the aspects of safety, efficacy, and quality of the vaccine.

Further conclusions are needed to provide EUA for Sinovac. BPOM, he said, will continue to monitor the development of the Sinovac vaccine clinical trial in the next three months.

"We will continue to monitor the safety aspect for three months, the next six months. We need a vaccine that is not only quality and safe, but also effective, has good efficacy," she said.

Furthermore, she said the BPOM was collecting data on how the Sinovac vaccine could generate antibodies to the human body so that a person could be immune to COVID-19. (Antaranews)

The Task Force for COVID-19 Response has said the cold chain preparation for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Indonesia has reached 97 percent completion.

"Currently, cold chain preparation in Indonesia has reached 97 percent [completion]," a spokesperson for the task force, Wiku Adisasmito, said at an online press conference from the Presidential office here on Thursday.

Cold chain storage comprises refrigerators and freezers to store vaccines and carriers to distribute them to immunization centers, especially those located in open spaces.

"The procedure to maintain the vaccine temperature or cold chain to keep its quality has run well," Adisasmito said.

Essential logistics for the vaccination drive include the cold chain, a series of precisely coordinated events in a temperature-controlled environment to store, manage, and transport vaccines in order to deliver them to all parts of the world.

The task force has said it will work closely with local governments to prepare human resources for the vaccination program.

"The central government will work in coordination with local governments to prepare officers to carry out the vaccination. The number of officers will be adjusted with the number of participants in the vaccination [program] and the supporting infrastructure," Adisasmito said.

Currently, the government is preparing a list of regions that would be prioritized for the vaccination drive, he informed.

“It is considering the number of positive cases, population, a region's size, and other factors [while assigning priority],” he said.

According to Health Ministry data, as of 2016, 78.8 percent of Public Health Centers (Puskesmas) have received refrigerators to store vaccines.

In 2018, the government ensured the setting up of cold chains in 9,951 Puskesmas across the country to support the implementation of immunization programs.

Vaccine storage would need special attention because a vaccine as a biological product is vulnerable to temperature change, hence it has to be stored at a certain temperature, which ranges from 2-8 degrees Celsius for freeze-sensitive vaccines to -15 to -25 degrees Celsius for heat-sensitive vaccines, Adisasmito said.

Generally, direct sun exposure can damage vaccines, he added.

The government has signed an agreement to procure a total of 143 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine concentrate from three Chinese pharmaceutical firms — Sinovac, Sinopharm, and CanSino, who will provide 65 million, 15 million, and 20 million doses of the vaccine concentrate, respectively.

The vaccine will be produced by state-run vaccine manufacturer PT Bio Farma.

The third phase of clinical testing for Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine has been conducted since August this year by the Padjajaran University. The study involving 1,620 volunteers has not reported any side effects yet.

In addition to China, Indonesia has also sought vaccines from United Arab Emirates (UAE) technology firm G-24, which agreed to send 10 million doses of vaccine in mid-August through cooperation with state-run pharmaceutical firm PT Kimia Farma.

Indonesia has also bought 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, with the first delivery of the vaccine scheduled in the second quarter of 2021.

The Ministry of National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) has urged collective efforts for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically target number 16 on peace, justice, and strong institutions.

During a discussion themed ‘Solidarity and Harmony between People as the Embodiment of SDG16 Indonesia to Rise from COVID-19’, held virtually on Thursday, head of Bappenas, Suharso Monoarfa, who is also Minister of National Development Planning, underlined the promotion of peace, justice, and inclusivity as the essence of SDG16.

"These are the main aims of SDG16," he stressed.

In order to meet the goal, he urged all components of the nation to take collective steps, one of which is establishing a peaceful community and preventing and ending violence among people.

He said promoting an inclusive society is one of the most important components in implementing the main principles of the agenda, besides creating a just society by solving the problems of justice that have been raised, especially during the pandemic.

“These [problems] include stigma and discrimination," he pointed out.

He further said that there needs to be collaboration between the government and non-governmental parties for conducting the efforts. Therefore, various joint steps can be taken to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic under the collective action agenda to support the achievement of the SDGs, he observed.

In the future, he continued, such cooperation needs to be more inclusive and expand beyond the focus on health aspects and post-pandemic economic recovery to various fields of sustainable development.

He then praised initiatives and innovations carried out in the spirit of solidarity between the people as part of efforts to tackle COVID-19.

Monoarfa cited as an example the efforts made by community organizations, including religious organizations, in providing assistance to the community in the form of free masks, basic necessities, and in educating the public about the importance of health protocols for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The spirit of philanthropy and mutual cooperation of the Indonesian population during the pandemic was evident in the donations collected via online fundraising campaigns that collected as much as Rp25 billion in April, 2020, which was then used to provide personal protective equipment to health workers as well as basic food assistance to people affected by COVID-19, he said. (Antaranews)