Canisius College’s alumni association has launched a free public vaccination program that aims to administer 5,000 doses per day in its first phase through July 18 with a focus on Jakarta, the epicenter of Indonesia's COVID-19 outbreak.
lumni Kanisius Menteng 64 (AM64), the alumni association of Canisius College, a Catholic secondary school located in Menteng, Jakarta, has launched a free COVID-19 vaccination program to provide 5,000 jabs per day for the general public.
AM64 previously held a free vaccine drive for the elderly in March-April.
During an event on Monday to launch the first phase of the alumni association’s public vaccination program, AM64 chairman Irlan Suud said it would prioritize the program’s initial efforts in Jakarta.
“Our goal is that people in Jakarta can get back to work, and we will push this so that we can achieve herd immunity, which in turn will help the economy,” Irlan said in a statement.
Running through July 18, the first phase of AM64’s vaccination program aims to administer the first dose of the CoronaVac vaccine to 70,000 recipients. The second stage of the program, which is set to run from Aug. 2 to 15, aims to administer the first CoronaVac jab to another 70,000 recipients.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin applauded the program as vital to helping the government meet the national vaccination target.
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“Cooperation is important. We need to have a national pooling of resources, a national collaboration so that we can meet the 420 million doses target in the next 6 months,” Budi said in his speech to launch the AM64 vaccine program.
The Health Ministry has set up a vaccination center for the AM64 program at the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan, Central Jakarta.
Budi said the national vaccine drive had administered 46 million doses as of June and that the government expected to meet its vaccination target of 420 million doses by December.
“We need to give between 2 and 2.5 million doses of vaccine per day,” he added.
The government recently scaled up its vaccination target from 180 million people to 210 million people, or 77.8 percent of the population, to achieve herd immunity.
Children are included among the recipients of the revised target.
The Kanisius College alumni association is collaborating with the Jakarta administration as well as private companies PT Combiphar, PT Petrosea, PT Prosehat and Eka Tjipta Foundation to run the vaccine program.
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