Ministry Of Health Needs Additional 30 Million Doses Of Sinovac For Child Vaccination

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health estimates that the need for additional Sinovac vaccines for the target group for COVID-19 vaccination aged 6-11 years will range from 25 to 30 million doses.

"We must make efforts to fulfill this vaccine by adding about 25-30 million additional doses of Sinovac vaccine because the current order is not sufficient to meet the needs of vaccines in the age range of children," said Spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccination at the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, quoted by Antara. , Wednesday, November 3rd.

He said the vaccines currently available are still prioritized for adults and the elderly because they are more at risk of serious illness.

"Our focus is on giving vaccinations to adults and the elderly who will be seriously ill and have a 3-5 times higher risk of dying than children," he said.

Nadia said that vaccination at the age of children has not been carried out in the near term because the Ministry of Health is still consulting to obtain recommendations from the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) and the Indonesia Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI) and other professions.

The consultation is to ensure the technical implementation of vaccination for the age range of 6-11 years, such as the screening process, handling side effects to the required dose.

When asked about the timing of the vaccination of children, Nadia estimated that the program would be rolled out in 2022 if all preparations had been completed.

"We don't know yet, this is still waiting for the calculation of the target and from Sinovac it may be early 2022," he said.

Meanwhile, Bio Farma Corporate Secretary Bambang Heriyanto said that Bio Farma, as the owner of the distribution permit for the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, seeks to ensure the availability of vaccines after the use of vaccines for children aged 6-11 years.

"Bio Farma guarantees the availability of Sinovac vaccine for children as in the previous vaccine distribution, we will distribute it, after this program is ratified and when we get an allocation order from the Ministry of Health," he said.

Bio Farma will bring in 40 million additional doses of vaccine from Sinovac in the form of a finish product, Bambang added.

From January to October 2021, Bio Farma has distributed 186.382,232 doses of Sinovac vaccine to all provinces in Indonesia. As for the total COVID-19 vaccine from all manufacturers that have been distributed from January 2021 to the end of October 2021, there are 226,601,558 doses.