ndonesia has secured enough buy-ins from its partners to provide a steady supply of COVID-19 vaccines for its procurement pipeline, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Monday, as global competition over the jabs heats up and the gap between rich and poor nations deepens.
Speaking at the vaccination of creative industry workers at the National Gallery in Jakarta, Budi gave an assurance that the country would have enough options to continue its vaccination drive even if global shortages get worse.
“Now the struggle to get vaccines is truly getting fierce all over the world. Thank God that Indonesia has four sources [to choose from],” he said at the public service event, broadcast live by the Presidential Secretariat.
The nation currently sources its vaccine jabs from several producers, including Chinese pharmaceuticals company Sinovac Biotech, Anglo-Swedish drug company AstraZeneca, United States drug developer Novavax and Pfizer-BioNTech, a US-German collaboration.
In the event of disrupted supplies from one manufacturer, the minister insists Indonesia would still be able to rely on the others. The country had hoped to diversify its vaccine supplies, but so far it could only rely on Sinovac.
“The smoothest delivery is from China; they routinely send a shipment every two weeks,” Budi said.
On Sunday, Indonesia received 6 million doses of bulk material for vaccines that will be processed into 4.8 doses set to be distributed in May, he said. The shipment was part of the 140 million bulk vaccines that Indonesia will receive this year from Sinovac.
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