10 mln doses of raw materials for Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine arrive in Indonesia

JAKARTA -- A total of 10 million doses of raw materials for COVID-19 vaccine from the Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Indonesia's city of Tangerang on Tuesday, an official said.

"The government is trying hard efforts to tackle COVID-19, including through vaccination," the Health Ministry's Secretary General Oscar Primadi said.

With the arrival, there are 28 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia, Primadi noted, adding that among them, 3 million doses were ready to use, and another 25 million doses arrived in the form of raw materials.

Bambang Heriyanto, Corporate Secretary of Indonesian state-run vaccine manufacturer Bio Farma, said 15 million doses of vaccine raw materials that arrived in Indonesia on Jan. 12 are still under process for the ready-to-use vaccine, targeted to be completed on Feb. 11.

Heriyanto said the raw materials that arrived Tuesday would be processed starting from Feb. 13 and expected to be completed on March 20.

Indonesia is targeting to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to 181.5 million people until next year.

A spokesperson for the Health Ministry's COVID-19 Vaccination said more than 500,000 medical workers have so far been vaccinated.

The target is that 1.5 million medical workers would have been vaccinated before the end of February.

"After that, 17.4 million public workers will be vaccinated," the spokesperson said.