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Jokowi wants COVID-19 vaccine available within three months
Padjajaran University professor Kusnandi Rusmil said Jokowi had called on the research team to fast-track the potential vaccine during a private meeting held at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday.
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resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has urged Padjadjaran University’s (Unpad) School of Medicine research team in Bandung, West Java, to make the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine available for widespread use within three months amid mounting concerns over the ongoing health crisis.
Unpad professor Kusnandi Rusmil said Jokowi had called on the research team to fast-track the potential vaccine during a private meeting held at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.
“We were instructed by the President [produce] a coronavirus vaccine within three months if possible,” he told the press after the meeting.
However, Kusnandi said the team could not possibly fulfill Jokowi’s request, as clinical trials for a possible vaccine would require stringent protocols and steps that would otherwise take years to complete under normal circumstances.
“We told [the President] that three months is impossible. We need to conduct proper testing.”
Kusnandi went on to say that he expected the vaccine — developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech in collaboration with state-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma — to pass phase III clinical trials as early as next January with a total of 1,620 samples tested.
Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) head Penny Lukito said the current phase was crucial and could make or break the vaccine.
“This is the most important and advanced phase, meaning that we are close to actually producing the vaccine,” she said, adding that the BPOM had ensured the validity of all testing protocols.
Bio Farma president director Honesti Basyir said the company expected to distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine per year as soon as the government authorized its widespread usage.
“We plan to expand it to 250 million doses per year,” he said.
“It is anticipated that the preliminary result of this Phase 3 clinical trial can be submitted for emergency use authorization by the BPOM by the first quarter of 2021.”
“It is evident that Sinovac has implemented a robust quality-management system,” Honesti said, praising the company for being among the first companies to conduct Phase 3 clinical trials for a potential vaccine in more than 30 countries outside China such as Brazil and Bangladesh.
Earlier on Monday, Foreign Ministry acting spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said the potential vaccine had been delivered to Bio Farma for a clinical trial.
“The vaccine material arrived on Sunday. It has been delivered to Bio Farma,” Faizasyah said on Monday as quoted from kompas.com.
He said the Foreign Ministry only facilitated the distribution from China to Indonesia and Bio Farma had collaborated with Sinovac Biotech to allow a transfer of technology and vaccine material between the two companies.
“Our short-term strategy is to ensure access to a [COVID-19] vaccine as soon as it is ready for mass production through international cooperation,” Faizasyah said.
“Indonesia has also set up a national consortium as a long-term strategy to ensure we can produce a vaccine independently,” he added.
In Washington, United States Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Wednesday the federal government had signed a contract with Pfizer Inc. for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, once it is approved.
“We just signed a contract with global pharmaceutical leader Pfizer to produce 100 million doses of vaccine starting in December of this year with an option to buy a half a billion doses,” Azar said on Fox News, as reported by Reuters.
“Now those would of course have to be safe and effective.”
A day earlier, US President Donald Trump expressed his willingness to work with China or other countries to bring a successful coronavirus vaccine to the US, despite rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.
“We’re willing to work with anybody that is going to get us a good result,” Trump said, when asked if the administration would collaborate with China on a vaccine for Americans, whether China is first to develop one or not.
The remarks came a day after researchers said a vaccine against the coronavirus developed by China’s CanSino Biologics Inc and China’s military research unit appeared to be safe and induced immune responses in most subjects in a closely-watched mid-stage study.
The CanSino candidate is one of a handful of vaccines that have shown some promise in early human testing. Others gearing up for such trials include vaccines from US-based Moderna Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech SE in partnership with American drugmaker Pfizer.
Data from a combined early and/or mid-stage trial of a vaccine candidate being developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca was also released on Monday.
