BPOM head Penny Lukito said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, also called Comirnaty, would be given to Indonesians aged 12 years and above under the nationwide vaccination drive.

“We all understand that to [be free of] this pandemic in good time, we must quickly expand coverage of the vaccinations, which in turn requires more types of vaccines,” Penny told a livestreamed press briefing on Thursday.

“We have granted an EUA to [the Comirnaty] vaccine, which adds to the roster of vaccines that can be used in Indonesia, as a follow-up to the agreement between the Health Ministry, PT Pfizer Indonesia and BioNTech SE,” said Penny, referring to a deal between the government and the vaccine developers announced just yesterday.

The financial details of the agreement were not disclosed in Wednesday's announcement.

The commencement of the vaccine’s delivery required the BPOM’s approval, with the latest available Health Ministry data showing a shipment of 8.5 million vaccine doses scheduled for August and September. The remaining 41.5 million doses are to be shipped in batches to the end of the year.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin welcomed the deal in a press release on Wednesday, saying that the vaccine would be used to fast-track the country’s vaccination drive.

The deal on the US-German vaccine product, which is playing a leading role in vaccination campaigns in the United States and Europe, has been in the works since November 2020, with Budi overseeing the negotiations in his former role as the deputy state-owned enterprises minister.

In a press statement obtained on Thursday, Pfizer Indonesia country manager Stephen Leung said that the agreement was “one significant step” toward protecting health and saving lives across the country, for restoring the economy "as well as [accelerating] the return to normal life for the Indonesian people”.

The statement also quoted Sean Marett, the chief business and chief commercial officer at BioNTech, as saying, “I would like to thank the government of Indonesia for its support and putting trust in our ability to develop a vaccine that, we believe, has the potential to help address this global pandemic threat.”

Read also: Indonesia scales up vaccine deals, rollout amid devastating 'second wave'

BPOM’s Penny said that while the Comirnaty vaccine must be stored at ultralow temperatures of a maximum minus 90 degrees Celsius, the manufacturers had given assurances that the vaccine’s cold storage requirements would be covered up to the location where the individual doses would be administered.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is now the sixth COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for emergency use in Indonesia after the Moderna vaccine, which gained EUA on July 2.

The government is trying to ramp up its COVID-19 vaccine rollout to combat the alarming surge in infections across the country, recently expanding its vaccination drive to target 200 million recipients as well as to cover more population groups, including children and adolescents.

As of Monday, the national vaccine drive has administered 51.43 million doses, comprising 36.39 million people who have received their first dose and another 15.04 million people who have received their second dose to become fully vaccinated.

Read also: Pfizer CEO: Vaccine third dose 'likely' needed within 12 months

A Pfizer study published in April found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was more than 91 percent effective in protecting against the coronavirus and more than 95 percent effective against severe COVID-19, up to six months after the second dose. But researchers said more data was needed to determine whether the vaccine remained equally effective beyond six months.

The phase 3 clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which uses BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA technology, ran from July 2020 to January 2021 and involved 46,000 volunteers, who are to be monitored for a period of two years following their second dose. (tjs)