Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said Monday that the Health Ministry had spent the money to procure 3 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd., as well as 100,000 doses from CanSino Biologics. The country received 1.2 million doses from Sinovac on Sunday, imported by state-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma.

“The [vaccine] procurement will take years to complete, from 2020 to 2021 and 2022,” she told reporters via a virtual briefing.

The vaccination process would be guided by the government’s criteria and the priority groups outlined by the Health Ministry, she said.

As suggested by the World Health Organization, the first phase of the vaccination program will target healthcare workers, Sri Mulyani said.

The vaccine shipment came as Indonesia plunged into recession for the first time in two decades as the government struggles to contain the outbreak and its economic fallout.

Indonesia passed a grim milestone of half a million coronavirus cases on Nov. 23, with around 6,000 new cases found on Sunday. The new cases brought the national tally to around 575,700, the highest in Southeast Asia despite the low testing rate.

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