JAKARTA - President Director of PT Bio Farma Honesti Basyir asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kemenlu) to diplomacy with other countries, especially India following the issue of the COVID-19 vaccine embargo.
This diplomacy is an effort to maintain Indonesia's vaccine supply so as not to be disrupted by an embargo.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs can also conduct diplomacy if the scheduled supplies to Indonesia can be carried out," Honesti said in a meeting with Commission VI of the DPR, Monday, March 29.
Although, said Honesti, Indonesia had signed a cooperation agreement to import AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines prior to the embargo.
He considered that the vaccine embargo from India was caused by the high number of COVID-19 cases in that country, so they chose to use their vaccine for their domestic needs first.
"The problem is that there are those from the Covax facility and also those from AstraZeneca which are produced from India because it is like that in India," said Honesti.
Nevertheless, according to him, the supply of the vaccine must be maintained considering that the speed of vaccination carried out by the government has increased from 100,000-200,000 doses per day to nearly 500,000 doses per day. This is because Sinovac vaccine supplies imported from China are still scheduled as before.
"We do not want this speed to be interrupted later because the vaccine supply expected from the Covax facility is delayed so that the speed is disrupted and we accept the risk," said Honesti.
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