IndoVac Prepared For COVID-19 Vaccination For Children Aged 611 Years, Just Wait For The Government's Rest

Vaccination for COVID-19 in children. (Between)

PT Bio Farma (Persero) plans to conduct clinical trials of the COVID-19 IndoVac vaccine for children aged 6-11 years in Indonesia.

President Director of PT Bio Farma (Persero) Honesti Basyir said his party was still waiting for government approval for the use of the IndoVac vaccine. Vaccination aged 6-11 years is known to have taken place in the country since December 14, 2021.

"If the government wants a COVID-19 vaccination program for children, we can complete clinical trials in three months," he said in Jakarta, Tuesday, December 13, quoted by Antara.

Honesti said that currently the stock of Sinovac vaccines intended for participants is experiencing a shortage since the government decided to stop imported vaccines as of October 2022 to switch to domestic vaccine production.

Although the program has been rolling for almost the past year targeting around 26.5 million children, Honesti said, Indonesia's stock of vaccines is not much.

"Lastly we used Sinovac, but the government has decided to use domestic production, we do this," he said.

The process of continuing the IndoVac clinical trial by Bio Farma is currently targeting booster vaccines for adolescents aged 12-17 years.

"The vaccine stock vacancy factor is because there are not many clinical trials for children. We with IndoVac are still targeting ages 16 and over for primary and booster doses," he said.

According to Honesti, clinical trials need to be carried out in stages to ensure vaccines produced are safe and have good efficacy for each target age.

"Currently there is no vaccine for children 6-11 years old because the program targets high risk first. Starting from the elderly for the second booster," he said.

He said the World Health Organization (WHO) had not yet set the age of 6-11 as a high priority category.

According to Honesti, clinical trials of the IndoVac vaccine for adolescents are targeted for completion by the end of 2022.

"I think as long as the pandemic is still there, we have to be vigilant. When the vaccine is ready, the government will definitely create a program," he said.