TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Bio Farma develops injectable polio vaccine
Change Size
Polio position – An immunization worker gives an oral polio vaccine to a child as part of 2016 National Immunization Week at state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma’s headquarters in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday.
(thejakartapost.com/Arya Dipa)
S
tate-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma is set to develop injectable polio vaccines, replacing the current vaccines that children must take orally.
Bio Farma president director Iskandar said the Indonesian vaccine manufacturer currently supplied polio vaccines to 132 countries in the world, but all of them were oral vaccines. “The injectable vaccines will replace the polio vaccines used now,” he said after the launch of 2016 National Immunization Week (PIN) for polio at the Bio Farma complex in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday.
Every year, Bio Farma produces at least 1.4 billion doses of polio vaccines to meet the global demand. “Around 20 million doses of the vaccines are to meet national demand,”Iskandar explained.
Along with the global target to eradicate polio by 2020, Iskandar said, Bio Farma had prepared various steps, including preparing inactivated polio vaccines (IPV).
The IPV, which is given as an injection, can be used alone or in conjunction with other vaccines.
“”Around 100 people are involved in the production process of this injectable vaccine,” said Iskandar, adding that the company had been preparing IPV since 1992.
Polio was one of the main issues discussed at the 68th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2015. In the meeting, Health Minister Nila Moeloke conveyed the government's commitment to support the world’s policies on the use of IPV to eradicate polio.
Indonesia’s immunization program, including the extending of polio vaccines to children aged 0-59 months, earned the country a polio-free certificate from the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 27, 2014.
Bio Farma corporate secretary M.Rahman Rustan said the company was currently supplying two thirds of total global polio vaccine need.
“The WHO still has to wait for two countries in the Asia Region, namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, because in 2015, hundreds of children with polio were found in those countries,” he said.
Iskandar added that the production of IPV by Bio Farma, which he said was still trusted globally as a leading polio vaccine manufacturer, was an indicator of Indonesia's self-reliance. “It is part of the implementation of the so-called Nawacita, the nine development programs initiated by the government. We hope that we can make it.” (ebf)
