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First vaccines arrive from China as questions about efficacy, safety remain
The government still needs to assuage concerns over the treatment’s real-world effectiveness and waits for BPOM to greenlight the vaccine’s emergency use before it can begin inoculating people.
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A bulk delivery of Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine candidate arrives at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten on Sunday. (Youtube/Setpres)
T
he first consignment of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by China's Sinovac Biotech arrived in Indonesia late on Sunday, officials have said, sparking hopes of an end to the country’s struggle against the coronavirus outbreak.
However, the government still needs to assuage concerns over the treatment’s real-world effectiveness and wait for the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) to greenlight the vaccine’s emergency use before it can begin inoculating people.
A total of 1.2 million doses of the vaccine are now stored in a warehouse of state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma in Bandung, West Java, having landed at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Banten on a flight from Beijing the night before.
A further 1.8 million doses of the ready-to-administer Sinovac vaccine are expected to ship in the next month. The state has paid a total of Rp 637 billion (US$45 million) for them.
On Sunday evening, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo welcomed the Chinese delivery.
“Thank God, we are very grateful that the vaccine is available, which means that we can immediately start containing the spread of COVID-19,” he said.
Indonesia has been badly hit by the pandemic, with COVID-19 infections topping 580,000, and more than 17,800 deaths. The true scale of the crisis is believed to be much bigger, however, due in large part to the country’s low testing rates.
