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WHO, UNICEF ask Bio Farma to stockpile polio vaccine
Bio Farma director Sri Harsi Teteki explained that the company had also received an official letter from the WHO through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) about their request for 500 million doses of the mOPV-2 global stockpile.
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Bio Farma president director M. Rahman Roestan (center) points to a pile of boxes of vaccines at the company's warehouse in Bandung, West Java. (Antara/M. Agung Rajasa)
T
he World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have asked state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma to produce and store monovalent oral polio vaccine type 2 (mOPV-2) as part of their effort to have a global stockpile of the vaccine.
Bio Farma director Sri Harsi Teteki explained that the company had also received an official letter from the WHO through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) about their request for 500 million doses of the mOPV-2 global stockpile.
“We responded positively to the request of the GPEI-WHO,” Sri said in Bandung, West Java, on Friday.
Recently, UNICEF’s supply division from Copenhagen visited a Bio Farma factory in Bandung to discuss cooperation on the procurement of the mOPV-2 global stockpile, she added.
Sri said Bio Farma, as the largest vaccine producer in Southeast Asia, supported the global move to eradicate polio, adding that a polio outbreak recently hit several countries, including Nigeria, Congo, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
She said representatives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and PATH also visited Bio Farma in Bandung to discuss cooperation in research and development to develop new vaccines.
“Since 2012, Bio Farma has cooperated with the BMGF, including the transfer of technology, in trying to produce new vaccines like novel OPV,” said Bio Farma president director M. Rahman Roestan.
Novel OPV (nOPV) is a new generation polio vaccine, which is being developed in line with the global goal to eradicate polio by 2020. The research into nOPV includes the development of vaccine technology, three-phase clinical trials and the production process.
“We are trusted because we have the capability to take part in ongoing research, which has taken place for five years now,” Rahman added. (bbn)
