JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - Coordinating minister for economic affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, announced that Indonesia extend the community restriction from April 20 to May 3 and expand to 25 provinces. The government had carried out the policy since last January was effective in controlling the rate of spread of COVID-19.
“The additional provinces are West Sumatra, Jambi, Bangka Belitung Islands, Lampung and West Kalimantan,” he told reporters after limited meeting led by President Joko Widodo at the president office on Monday (04/19).
While, in the midst of tight supply of the vaccine raw materials due to embargoes from the manufacturers, Indonesia received another 6 million raw materials for the COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac. Health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, stated that the raw materials were part of the targets 140 million bulks from the Chinese drug-maker in 2021.
With the arrival of the 8th phase of the vaccine powder, said the minister, Indonesia had received 59.5 vaccine raw materials from Sinovac and will processed by the state-owned pharmaceutical firm, PT Bio Farma, into COVID-19 vaccines. It will be around 46 - 47 million doses. He stated, “Until now about 22 million doses has been producer and have distributed to all regions.”
In the next one month, he continued, its hoped that an additional 20 million doses of vaccine will be received from Bio Farma’ factory. With the additional supply of vaccines, he expect that the vaccination program which is carried out throughout Indonesia in April - May can run smoothly.
Basde on data from the task force, on Monday there were an additional 4,952 new cases of infections in Indonesia, brings the total 1.61 million positive cases. While, the recovered numbers increased by 6,349 people to become 1.46 million people and total death toll increased to 43,567.
Sadikin has said that the country needs around 426 million doses of vaccines to to fulfill ‘herd immunity” for around 181 million Indonesian. To reached the targets, the government has ensured to meet the number of vaccines, he adds.
The government has signed a contract for 144 million doses of vaccine from Sinovac with an additional option to 100 million doses of vaccines. Beside, Indonesia wants to secure the vaccines from United States (US)’ drug-maker Pfizer and British’ AstraZeneca.
Indonesia also signed a contract with AstraZeneca to obtain 100 million doses of vaccine and another 100 million other doses which will also be imported from BioNTech-Pfizer. In addition, said Basyir, the subsidiary, PT Kimia Farma Tbk (IDX: KAEF), is also waiting for the results of cooperation with a company from Abu Dhabi, G42, to procure vaccines in Indonesia.
“Obtaining vaccines from these four sources aims to ensure the resilience or security of vaccines coming to Indonesia in the quantities needed. The very large number of COVID-19 vaccines is expected to come to Indonesia soon,” he told the media recently.
In total, said Sadikin, Indonesia will receive 660 million doses of vaccines including from CEVI and GAVI, a public – private global health partnership under World Health Organization. Earlier, President Joko Widodo has instructed all levels in the cabinet, ministries, agencies and local governments to prioritize the vaccination program in 2021.
He also ordered the minister of finance to prioritize and reallocates other budget related to the availability and vaccination for free. Until this week, 6 million Indonesian have received the vaccine shot and nearly 3 million of them have been given the second dose of the vaccine.
Written by Editorial Staff, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com
