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Indonesian health workers to get Moderna jab as COVID-19 'booster'
The Health Ministry's plan to give a third shot containing a dose of the Moderna vaccine to health workers amid the ongoing "second wave" has been green-lighted by the BPOM and ITAGI.
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A vial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is seen on Jan. 15, 2021 at a clinic in Aschaffenburg, Germany. (Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo)
T
he government has announced a plan to give nearly 1.5 million health workers a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from United States pharmaceutical firm Moderna as a “booster”, to provide them with better protection while battling the deadly “second wave” of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said all health workers would receive a third shot of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine once the first shipment had arrived in the country, due sometime over the weekend.
Budi said the ministry had discussed the Moderna “booster” plan with the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) and the Indonesia Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI).
“We have agreed that the Moderna vaccine will be given as a third dose to provide maximum immunity to existing viral mutations,” said the health minister.
Read also: Indonesia accepts foreign aid amid struggle to contain virus
The vaccine product, which is widely used in Western countries, is part of the 4 million doses the US promised to Indonesia last year under the COVAX Facility, a global vaccine equity initiative led by Gavi and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We should note that we have yet to reach our vaccination goals, so it’s important to remember that a third dose will be given only to health workers,” Budi stressed, adding that he hoped the Moderna vaccine would be administered next week.
Health workers have said that the ongoing surge in COVID-19 infections on the most populous islands of Java and Bali was “like a war zone”, with sick patients overwhelming hospitals that were rapidly running out of beds, drugs and medicines.
The current surge is said to be the result of heightened community mobility over the Idul Fitri holiday in May and primarily driven by the more contagious Delta variant.
Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) deputy chairman Slamet Budiarto previously suggested that the government consider giving health workers a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, which might give them better protection against the coronavirus.
Data from independent tracking site LaporCovid-19 showed that at least 114 Indonesian health workers have died since June, the majority fully vaccinated with the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech Ltd.
Read also: Overworked, demoralized: Indonesian health workers battle unprecedented case wave
According to the WHO’s interim recommendations for CoronaVac published on June 2, large-scale phase III clinical trials in Brazil found that the vaccine “had an efficacy of 51 percent against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 100 percent against severe COVID-19 and 100 percent against hospitalization starting 14 days after receiving the second dose”.
Moderna has stated that its vaccine is 94.1 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 in people who were fully vaccinated with two doses. A Canadian study pending peer review has found that a single dose of Moderna is 72 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infections caused by the Delta variant after two weeks.
