1.47 Million Health Workers Will Be Injected With The Third Vaccine Next Week

ILLUSTRA TION / VOI

JAKARTA - The government will carry out a third or booster vaccination for health workers handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was recorded in the presentation delivered by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto when announcing Emergency PPKM in 15 districts/cities outside Java-Bali Island.

In the presentation, it was stated that the third vaccination would target millions of health workers in the country. The technical implementation will be regulated by the Ministry of Health.

"The 3rd vaccination program (booster) will be carried out starting next week for 1.47 million health workers," said Airlangga's slide presentation as quoted on Friday, July 9.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, who participated in the press conference on the announcement of the Emergency PPKM, emphasized that this third vaccination was only intended for health workers. This is a form of protection for those who are at the forefront of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It is important for us to understand that this third vaccination is only given to health workers. Because it is our health workers who encounter very high levels of the virus every day and we must protect them to the utmost so that they can concentrate on their work," said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs. .

Minister of Health Budi said that later this third dose of injection will use the Moderna vaccine from the United States and based on mRNA.

This decision was taken after the Ministry of Health discussed and received approval from the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) as well as the Indonesian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI).

"BPOM and ITAGI and have agreed that the third vaccine will be given using the moderna vaccine. Thus, it can provide maximum immunity against variations of existing virus mutations," said Budi.

Furthermore, he said the plan for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine would arrive next week. "It is hoped that starting next week we can start (the third vaccination, red)," he concluded.