Jokowi Introduces Indonesian-Made Red And White Vaccine To Fight COVID-19

Officers took blood samples of volunteers during a vaccine test simulation at RSP Unpad. (Bagus Ahmad Rizaldi / Antara)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo explained that there are two vaccines that are currently being developed and worked on by the government in collaboration with related institutions, namely the vaccine from Sinovac, China and the Red and White vaccine which are all made in Indonesia.

"So we fully develop our own by the Eijkman institution and also the BPPT (Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology), LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Sciences), BPOM (Food and Drug Supervisory Agency), the Ministry of Research and Technology and our universities, namely vaccines. Red and White, "said President Joko Widodo at the Padjajaran University Teaching Hospital, Bandung, as reported by Antara, Tuesday, August 11.

President Jokowi conveyed this after witnessing the third stage clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac, China whose production will be carried out by Bio Farma, while clinical trials will be carried out by a team from the Faculty of Medicine, Padjajaran University.

"For the past 3 months, we have developed our own vaccine from an isolated (virus) developed from the COVID-19 (virus) circulating in Indonesia," added the President.

The President said that the plan for the Red and White vaccine will be completed in mid-2021.

"Apart from that, we are also open to working together, for example with Sinovac from China, then working with the United Arab Emirates in the G-42, cooperating with South Korea, I think we are opening up in order as soon as possible to vaccinate all the people. Indonesia, "said the President.

Meanwhile, for the COVID-19 vaccine, which is currently undergoing a phase III clinical trial, President Jokowi has also seen the injection directly.

"Today I saw firsthand the implementation of the first injection of immunization for 1,620 volunteers, which will be tested and we hope that this third clinical trial, God willing, will be completed in 6 months and God willing, in January (2021) we can produce," The President added. Vaccine production will be carried out by Bio Farma himself. "What we know is that in August it could produce approximately 100 million vaccines, but at the end of the year in December it has increased to 250 million vaccines. This means that these vaccines will be used for vaccination. in Indonesia, "the President added. The Red and White Vaccine is a domestically made COVID-19 vaccine. The development process was carried out by the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology (LBM). The vaccine is different from the COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac, China which is currently being tested in phase III clinical trials. The difference is that Sinovac valsin uses one virus then reproduces in the laboratory and the virus is then separated and inactivated (inactivated vaccine) to be safe for humans. So the vaccine given is the whole virus. While the Red and White vaccine is developed using a recombinant method, meaning that not all viruses are used but only certain parts of the virus that are considered important are then reproduced and made into antigens. The Red and White vaccine itself is scheduled to complete animal trials. at the end of 2020. After effective animal testing, the vaccine seeds will later be submitted to Bio Farma for preclinical and clinical trials.