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Jokowi issues presidential regulation on COVID-19 vaccination
President Jokowi has signed a much-anticipated regulation on COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination that determines how the vaccine is procured and who gets it first.
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A syringe is seen ahead of trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine at the Wits RHI Shandukani Research Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug. 27. (REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)
A much-anticipated regulation on COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination has been issued.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo signed Presidential Regulation No. 99/2020 on vaccine procurement and vaccination to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday.
It came into effect the next day.
The decree breaks down requirements for the procurement, implementation, funding and support and facilities from ministries, institutions and regional administrations concerning COVID-19 vaccination.
According to the regulation, frontline workers, from health workers and contact-tracing paramedics to military and law enforcement personnel, will be prioritized for vaccination.
They number some 3.5 million people.
The second-priority group are religious and community leaders, local authorities at district, village, community and neighborhood units, who number more than 6 million individuals.
The third priority group includes more than 4 million teachers at various levels of education.
The fourth group is government officials and legislatives council members (2,306,689).
The fifth group is members of the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) whose fees are paid by the government. Their number exceeds 86 million individuals.
The last group of more than 57 million are the general public.
To distribute the vaccine evenly across the country, the government plans to procure cold chain equipment to store and distribute hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine from other countries.
Deputy State-Owned Enterprises Minister Budi Gunadi previously said two state-owned pharmaceutical firms, Bio Farma and Kimia Farma, currently had the capacity to store 123 million of the needed 352 million vaccine doses.
Indonesia has forged cooperation with several countries regarding the supply of potential vaccines.
China’s Sinovac Biotech, in a partnership with Bio Farma, is running late-stage human trials of a candidate vaccine in Bandung, West Java.
The trial has involved some 1,620 volunteers since August.
The government has also looked into partnerships with two other Chinese drug manufacturers, Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics.
The Research and Technology Ministry, meanwhile, is leading a national consortium comprising research bodies and universities to develop the homemade Merah Putih vaccine.
The Health Ministry also signed an agreement with UNICEF to procure COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX, a global vaccine allocation plan co-led by the World Health Organization that aims for an even distribution of the vaccine.
According to Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi, Indonesia has secured a commitment to receive 20-30 million doses of a potential vaccine by the end of this year, some 80-130 million doses in first quarter of next year and 210 million doses for the remainder of 2021.
The government has set aside Rp 37 trillion to procure COVID-19 vaccines. As of Wednesday, Indonesia recorded a total 315,714 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 11,472 fatalities. (iwa)
Editor’s note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force (Satgas COVID-19) to raise people’s awareness about the pandemic.
