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Police in Medan arrest four for stealing vaccines meant for prisoners
The suspects took more than 1,000 doses made by China's Sinovac from the prisoners' quota, offering them to buyers in Jakarta and in Medan for around Rp 250,000 ($17) each.
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Vaccine for all: A medical worker shows Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at Jurang Mangu community health center in South Tangerang, Banten on Jan. 15, 2021. Indonesia is scrambling to secure about 400 million doses of vaccine from various producers from across the world. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
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our people have been arrested in North Sumatra for allegedly stealing Covid-19 vaccines marked for prisoners and selling them to the public, authorities said Tuesday.
The suspects took more than 1,000 doses made by China's Sinovac from the prisoners' quota, offering them to buyers in Jakarta and in Medan for around Rp 250,000 ($17) each.
The four arrested included a doctor at a prison in Medan and a local health official, police said. They could face a life sentence if convicted under the country's anti-corruption law.
"One of the suspects brought the vaccines to Jakarta where we also uncovered some locations providing the service," North Sumatra police spokesman Sr. Comr. Hadi Wahyudi told AFP Tuesday.
The Indonesian government is now rolling out a massive vaccination program for many of the country's nearly 270 million people.
Citizens get shots at no cost.
But tens of millions are still waiting for their jabs, with limited supplies prioritised for frontline health workers and other high-risk groups -- including the inmates at Indonesia's overcrowded prisons.
The country's prison system is notorious for poor conditions and rights groups have warned about the risk of coronavirus outbreaks in jails across the archipelago.
The arrests come after a separate vaccine scandal in North Sumatra this month, when police said they found health workers at Medan's airport were recycling cotton swabs from Covid-19 tests by washing and repackaging them.
The scheme could have affected thousands of passengers tested at the airport, they said.
Indonesia has officially reported more than 1.7 million cases of coronavirus and nearly 50,000 deaths.
