Message For The Chinese Vaccine, The COVID-19 Task Force Doesn't Matter If The Virus Types Are Different

Spokesperson for the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito (Photo: Public Relations of BNPB)

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Wiku Adisasmito admitted that he did not mind if the type of corona virus transmitted in Indonesia was different, when the government had ordered 340 million doses of vaccine from China.

Wiku said, if the strain or type of virus mutation in COVID-19 in Indonesia is different from that in China, the vaccine can still be used for the public.

"It doesn't mean that if the strains are different, the vaccines will continue to be ineffective," Wiku said in a live broadcast of the press conference on the Presidential Secretariat Youtube account, Tuesday, August 24.

Wiku said that the government's maneuver to buy up vaccine rations to be produced by the Chinese pharmaceutical company, Sinovac Biotech, was claimed as an effort to protect the Indonesian people so that the transmission of COVID-19 could be suppressed.

"We must be able to provide protection to the community, in this context the vaccine, at the same time the Indonesian government through the existing consortium is also developing its own vaccine," said Wiku.

Wiku predicts the development of the red and white vaccine by the Eijkman Bio Molecular Institute and PT Biofarma, the clinical trial process to mass production will take quite a long time.

That way, when the results of domestic vaccine development are still not available for 267 million people, the government already has vaccine reserves bought from abroad.

"By having negotiated (ordering vaccines) earlier, we can ensure this access if (domestic vaccine calculations) miss," said Wiku.

"Of course, we always monitor the availability of vaccines in world developers, including encouraging the production of red and white vaccines from consortia in Indonesia," he added.