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Will Indonesia’s preordered COVID-19 vaccines protect against new variants?
Indonesia's use of the underreported Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine and the nation's insufficient genomic surveillance capabilities have health experts concerned that more contagious variants of COVID-19 may disrupt the state-led vaccination drive.
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A health worker receives a COVID-19 jab at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta on Jan. 14, a day after Indonesia began its mass vaccination program, with health workers given top priority. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he recent emergence of new and highly transmissible strains of COVID-19 has cast doubt on whether the vaccine Indonesia has ordered for its ongoing immunization drive would continue to work should the more contagious variants arrive at the nation’s doorstep.
The three strains of concern are the B1117 variant first identified in Britain, the B1351 variant detected in South Africa and the B1128 strain first found among Brazilians. Some of these strains have already been found in neighboring countries, but Indonesia still lags behind in genomic sequencing to be able to detect any of them.
Read also: Genome surveillance another weak link in Indonesia's coronavirus fight, experts warn
Concerns have been mounting globally that these variants could affect ongoing vaccination campaigns, as producers work hard to ensure their immunizing agents would still stimulate the production of antibodies able to fight these resistant variants.
At least one country, South Africa, has suspended the start of its immunization drive over concerns that the vaccine shots it is using will not work on the new variant discovered there.
The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 2.3 million lives globally out of nearly 106 million known infections, according to official reports, but vaccine rollouts in many countries are gathering pace.
Indonesia has administered the first shots of Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac – an inactivated vaccine – to over 700,000 people since last month, mostly frontline healthcare workers. From this pool of recipients, more than 130,000 have received their second jabs of the vaccine, according to Health Ministry data revealed on Sunday.
