“We have been developing our own vaccine for the past three months, specifically from the COVID-19 virus strain spread in Indonesia. Hopefully the vaccine will be ready soon and it [the vaccine development] is expected to be completed by mid-2021,” he said Tuesday at a ceremony to launch late-stage human trials of the vaccine being developed by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd with Indonesian state-owned peer Bio Farma at the Padjadjaran University (Unpad) School of Medicine’s hospital in Bandung, West Java.

Twenty registered volunteers were injected with the potential vaccine for the first time at the hospital of Unpad’s School of Medicine on Tuesday. The trial is expected to finish in six months at the earliest and will require a total of 1,620 volunteers.

According to Bio Farma, 540 volunteers were gathered in the first phase of registration, and 1,080 volunteers are expected to be enrolled in the second phase.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil announced Monday that he had registered himself as a volunteer for the trials, but was currently still waiting for confirmation.

Bio Farma envisioned gradual trials, with 120 volunteers scheduled to receive injections by this week and 144 volunteers to take part in each of the following weeks.

“We are proud that a state-owned enterprise [SOE] like Bio Farma in partnership with Sinovac Biotech of China are able to begin phase III clinical trials. Not many countries or institutions have been able to reach this stage,” SOEs Minister Erick Thohir, who is also the head of the COVID-19 mitigation and national economic recovery committee, said in a written statement on Tuesday.

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