More COVID-19 Sinovac vaccines arrive in Indonesia

JAKARTA -- Another batch of the COVID-19 vaccine in bulk produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac arrived at Indonesia's Soekarno Hatta Airport Tuesday morning, a senior Indonesian official said.

"Today we witnessed the arrival of 8 million bulk doses of the COVID-19 Sinovac vaccine," said Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto, adding it means that Indonesia has so far received a total of 83.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, both in bulk and ready-to-use.

Besides Sinovac vaccines, Indonesia also received vaccines produced by British company AstraZeneca and vaccines produced by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm, according to the official.

Specifically, the Sinopharm vaccine is used for vaccination programs with a mutual cooperation scheme locally called "gotong royong" initiated by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where companies or institutions provide COVID-19 vaccines for their employees for free.

Indonesia, with a population of nearly 271.35 million people, is targeting the inoculation of 181.5 million people to create herd immunity.