Minister Of Health: National Production Of COVID-19 Vaccine Packaged By PBI BPJS Kesehatan During Endemic

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION/Mufid Majnun

JAKARTA - c

"If for example this becomes endemic, maybe later we will package the free vaccinations in the PBI. Those are only domestic vaccines," he said in a Joint Working Meeting with Commission IX of the DPR as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, January 24.

Meanwhile, imported vaccines, he said, would be included like other routine vaccines such as influenza, with tariffs ranging from less than IDR 200,000 per beneficiary.

"For those who are not PBI, we are open to society, they can buy their own vaccines from pharmacies or hospitals in general, the same as for meningitis or influenza vaccinations. So that the state's burden can be concentrated on poor people only through the PBI mechanism," he said.

The Minister of Health said the policy was part of accelerating the COVID-19 vaccination this year, in addition to a series of other strategies currently in progress.

After the issuance of Inmendagri No. 53/2023 regarding the revocation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM), said Budi, the public is still encouraged to complete the primary dose and booster doses of vaccination.

He said starting January 24, 2023, the Ministry of Health had issued a policy for giving a second booster to the general public at the age of 18 and over.

"We will also open COVID-19 vaccinations for children under the age of 6, which we plan to discuss with ITAGI and BPOM so we can run them," he said.

Vaccines for children will use imported production, taking into account that vaccine supplies are still sufficient in Indonesia.

As is known, the stock of the COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia is currently around more than 9.3 million doses. A total of 7.2 million doses were stored in central government storage facilities and 2.1 million doses in the regions.

He said the types of vaccines available included 138,185 doses of the Janssen vaccine, 3,344,772 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 8,404 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, 189,684 of the Zifivax vaccine.

The rest are domestically produced Red and White vaccines, including 1,171,755 doses of InaVac vaccine, and 4,528,570 doses of IndoVac vaccine.