Authorities in East Java have prepped 2,400 staff for the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.

“The East Java administration has readied the cold chains for the COVID-19 vaccines, apart from grooming some 2,400 vaccinators. Therefore, we are ready to distribute the vaccines [in the province],” East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa said during a talk show in Madiun on Sunday, as quoted by antaranews.com.

She went on to say that the vaccines had arrived in Indonesia and that the central government was in the process of distributing them to the regions. The East Java administration was waiting for further arrangements to receive the vaccines.

In the meantime, the East Java COVID-19 task force has set up a preparation team for the COVID-19 vaccination, a decision that was made after a meeting between Khofifah and the home affairs minister, the health minister and the state-owned enterprises minister.

The team is to comprise officers from various agencies under the East Java administration. The team’s duties include public communication and other preparations for the vaccination drive.

Separately, Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto has said that the government will cover the cost of vaccination for only 32 million of the 107 million people targeted to receive COVID-19 vaccines by 2022. 

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Terawan said the vaccination program would target 67 percent of the nation’s 167 million people aged between 18 and 56 years, as recommended by the Indonesian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization. 

“There will be two schemes: a [public] and a private one. The [public] scheme will be carried out by the Health Ministry and the private one will be rolled out by the State-Owned Enterprises [SOEs] Ministry in partnership with the Health Ministry,” he said on Thursday during a hearing with House of Representatives Commission IX, which oversees health care and manpower. 

The state-funded program seeks to cover 32 million people: 1.2 million medical workers, 4.4 million public service workers, including military and police personnel, and 26.4 million people from vulnerable groups. 

It will require 73.9 million doses, accounting for 15 percent wastage. 

The private program, meanwhile, seeks to cover 75 million people, including Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) participants and holders of other insurance policies. This will require 172.6 million doses, accounting for wastage. 

The vaccines are to be distributed through private healthcare facilities. 

Read also: Efficacy and effectiveness determine quality of COVID-19 vaccine: Task force

The head of the economic recovery task force, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, who is also the deputy SOEs minister, said 10,900 state-owned and private hospitals and clinics would be participating in the private vaccination program in a way that would “not disrupt the government's program”. 

Based on the ministry’s rough estimates, as many as 300 people would be vaccinated every day at each hospital and about 100 people per day at clinics. In total, the government is hoping to vaccinate 75 million people within six months. (nkn)

Editor’s note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force to raise people’s awareness about the pandemic.