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Private vaccination talks could spell 'bad news' for those most at risk
The government is considering granting the private sector the authority to market COVID-19 vaccines in Indonesia as it races against the clock to vaccinate enough of the population to achieve herd immunity.
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Hope in a vial: A health worker shows a Sinovac vaccine dose at the Jurang Mangu community health center in South Tangerang, Banten, on Friday. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
T
he Health Ministry is exploring the possibility of allowing for private COVID-19 vaccination, raising concerns about possible disruptions to the government's free inoculation program, which is currently in place to prioritize those most at risk.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that there had been talks on private vaccination but they were not yet final. He explained that, as a regulator, it was his objective to obtain vaccines as soon as possible and for the lowest cost possible.
He said any private vaccination scheme could only commence after the inoculation of medical and public workers, so as to prevent the narrative that "people with money" were first in line for the vaccine.
"Or the second [option] is to prohibit [private vaccination] for individuals, [instead] allowing only corporations [to receive the benefit], with one requirement being the corporations purchasing the vaccines must inoculate all their workers and not just their directors or upper-level workers," Budi told lawmakers in a hearing last week.
In this scenario, the private sector would need to procure a vaccine on its own. Any vaccines must meet the approval of the World Health Organization and the Indonesian Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM), and all data must be integrated with the Health Ministry.
However, with a shortage of available vaccines, the government plan was likely to face problems and it therefore must be avoided, Griffith University global health researcher Dicky Budiman said.
He said that during the ongoing health crisis, vaccines were not an economic commodity but a public good, meaning they should fall in line with public health strategies.
