Government Imports 1.2 Million Doses Of Sinovac Vaccine, Faisal Basri: Buy A Cat In A Sack

The Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine that came to Indonesia on Sunday 6 December 2020. (Photo: Doc. Setkab)

JAKARTA - Senior Economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Faisal Basri highlighted the government's move to buy up 1.2 million doses of vaccine made by a pharmaceutical company from China, Sinovac. According to him, the effectiveness of the vaccine has not been tested.

Faisal said, Sinovac gave the latest statement regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine made by the company, in which the statement was in response to PT Bio Farma which said the Sinovac vaccine was 97 percent effective in early-stage tests against COVID-19.

"The stage 3 clinical trial is not yet, Sinovac himself has not announced the effectiveness of the vaccine, so it is as if we are buying a cat in a sack," said Faisal in a virtual discussion, Wednesday, December 23.

As is known, on Sunday, December 6, the COVID-19 vaccine, a product of Sinovac from China, arrived in Indonesia, totaling 1.2 million doses. The vaccine is transported using an aircraft belonging to the airline PT Garuda Indonesia Tbk (GIAA), an aircraft of the Boeing 777-300ER type.

This vaccine from a Chinese pharmaceutical company is the first COVID-19 vaccine to land in Indonesia. In the first phase, the government brought in 1.2 million doses. Followed by plans for the arrival of the second phase of 1.8 million doses.

The Sinovac vaccine was rejected by the Brazilian Government. Not only Brazil, the Cambodian government also announced that they would not let their citizens be guinea pigs for any vaccine developed by China.

Unlike Brazil and Cambodia, the Indonesian government decided to continue importing the COVID-19 vaccine from China. Currently, the vaccine is undergoing phase 3 clinical trials.

Head of BPOM Penny Lukito said the evaluation of the safety, efficacy and quality of the COVID-19 vaccine was carried out by referring to standard provisions and standards from a number of international institutions.

BPOM refers to the quality standards for the corona vaccine set by the World Health Organization or WHO (WHO Emergency Listing), the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), and the European Medicines Agency or EMA (Conditional Approval).

"Permit to use the COVID-19 vaccine, including the Sinovac vaccine which is currently in the process of phase 3 clinical trials in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia, is carried out through an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) scheme," he said, in an official statement, Wednesday, December 16th.

For the purposes of issuing the EUA permit for the COVID-19 vaccine, said Penny, BPOM can use interim data, namely in the form of observations for three months after the injection of the vaccine.

Regarding the data on the results of the Sinovac vaccine clinical trial in Indonesia, according to Penny, until December 16, 2020, a report was still being prepared by UNPAD researchers and Bio Farma as sponsors of the test. He ensured that after the report was submitted to the BPOM, his agency would immediately conduct an evaluation to check the results of the clinical trial.

The evaluation was carried out to see whether the results of phase 3 clinical trials in Indonesia proved that the Sinovac vaccine was efficacious and safe. The evaluation will also compare the benefits and risks of using the vaccine, as a basis for giving EUA.