Members Of The DPR PKS Faction Ask The Government To Accelerate Red And White Vaccine Production: Unfortunately, The Budget Is Thin But Buying Imported Vaccines

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission VII of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Mulyanto, asked the government to accelerate the production of the Red and White vaccine which is being developed by the COVID Research Consortium under the coordination of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).

"(Accelerating the production of the Red and White vaccine) is an instrument for achieving herd immunity in the community. The government should not rely too much on imported vaccines," Mulyanto said in a release quoted by Antara, Tuesday, July 13.

According to him, currently this domestic innovation vaccine research seems to be running as usual and different from the government's attitude towards imported vaccines.

In fact, he continued, the use of the Red and White vaccine is very important as an effort to build human resources excellence and domestic innovation capabilities.

Thus, according to Mulyanto, Indonesia does not depend on imported vaccines and is merely a market for the vaccine business.

"Unfortunately, this limited budget is drained to buy tens of millions of imported vaccines," he said.

Mulyanto believes that currently the funds for vaccine research at LBM Eijkman are considered far from adequate, so the government should allocate sufficient research funds, so that the Merah Putih vaccine can be produced earlier.

He also firmly rejected the plan for a paid vaccine service, because in an emergency like now the government should provide free services to all people.

Meanwhile, the government has asked state-owned company PT Bio Farma (Persero) to increase production of the COVID-19 vaccine in order to achieve the target of two million injections per day in August 2021.

"The government is targeting to inject two million doses of vaccine per day in August. The SOE Minister has asked Bio Farma to increase vaccine production from raw materials to finished vaccines in the midst of this emergency PPKM," said Spokesperson for the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) Dedy Permadi in a statement. PPKM Emergency daily press in Jakarta, Monday.

Previously, Bio Farma's vaccine production reached 12 million doses per month, but now the pharmaceutical BUMN holding is capable of producing up to 20 million doses of vaccine per month.

"In the future, Bio Farma is encouraged to continue to increase production by up to two times," said Dedy.