Foreign Minister Retno: 15 Million Sinovac Vaccines Will Arrive In Indonesia In The Near Future

Capture the screen of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi. (Diah Ayu Wardani / VOI)

JAKARTA - Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that there will be 15 million doses of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine that will be sent to Indonesia. Currently, 3 million doses of Sinovac vaccine have arrived in Indonesia. In the near future, Indonesia will hold 18 million vaccines.

"In the near future, 15 million bulk vaccines from Sinovac which will be manufactured by Bio Farma will arrive in Indonesia," said Retno in a YouTube broadcast by the Presidential Secretariat, Thursday, December 31.

Retno said that the arrival of the Sinovac vaccine would mean access to vaccines in Indonesia through bilateral tracks from various countries that produce the corona virus vaccine. Meanwhile, from the multilateral track side, according to Retno, diplomacy continues to be carried out by communicating and coordinating with WHO and GAVI in order to secure vaccine access through the COVAX-AMC mechanism (advance market commitment).

"We will continue to guard this process with various parties, both through bilateral and multilateral tracks for vaccine procurement," said Retno.

As is known, as many as 1.8 million doses made by a pharmaceutical company from China, Sinovac, arrived at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Tangerang on Thursday, December 31, 2020 at around 12.00 WIB.

The vaccine is transported using Garuda Indonesia aircraft and is the 2nd Sinovac vaccine delivery package, after previously 1.2 million doses were sent on December 6, 2020.

"Alhamdulillah, today, 1.8 million Sinovac vaccines have arrived in Indonesia. Then this vaccine will be sent to Bio Farma Bandung for safe storage according to the protocol of vaccine distortion according to WHO standards," said Retno.

With the delivery of the second phase, it means that according to Retno, there are already 3 million Sinovac vaccines in Indonesia. Then, the government also continues to establish communication to secure supplies from various other sources.

"Yesterday Indonesia signed a supply commitment from Novavax, which used 50 million doses of sub-recombinant protein 'platform' from the United States, then AstraZenica, which used a viral factor 'platform' from the UK, also amounted to 50 million," said Retno.

In parallel, ongoing discussions are also being held with the vaccine company Pfizer from the United States and Germany.

Retno also said that the vaccine made by the British company AstraZeneca had received an "emergency use authorization" or EUA from the Medicines and Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency or MHRA UK.