Government Asks Bio Farma To Increase Production Of COVID-19 Vaccine To 40 Million Doses Per Month

Workers unloaded an envirotainer containing raw materials for the COVID-19 Sinovac vaccine from Beijing. (Photo: Muhammad Iqbal/Antara)

JAKARTA - The government has asked the state-owned company PT Bio Farma (Persero) to increase the production of the COVID-19 vaccine in order to achieve the target of two million injections per day in August 2021.

"The government is targeting to inject two million doses of vaccine per day in August. The SOE Minister has asked Bio Farma to increase vaccine production from raw materials to finished vaccines in the midst of this emergency PPKM," said Spokesperson for the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) Dedy Permadi in a statement. PPKM Emergency daily press in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Monday, July 12.

Previously, Bio Farma's vaccine production reached 12 million doses per month, but now the pharmaceutical BUMN holding is capable of producing up to 20 million doses of vaccine per month.

"In the future, Bio Farma is encouraged to continue to increase production up to two times," he said.

Dedy also said that currently, the government is accelerating injections with ongoing vaccinations or mobile vaccines by visiting the community directly, especially in unreached areas.

"The local government, TNI, and Polri will maximize ongoing vaccinations or mobile vaccines," he said.

On the other hand, continued Dedy, the government continues to improve health protocols and tighten activities through emergency and micro PPKM, as well as strengthening testing, tracing, and treatment (3T).

"This is a complete move to control the jump in cases that are currently happening," he added.

The Ministry of Health noted that from Monday to 12.00 western Indonesia time, additional daily cases reached a new record of 40,427 people, bringing the total COVID-19 cases to 2,567 million people.

Meanwhile, as many as 34,754 people were declared cured this Monday or a new record, bringing the total recovered patients to 2.119 million people.

However, the number of deaths recorded was still increasing quite a lot, namely 891 people on Monday, bringing the total number of deaths from COVID-19 to 67,355 people.

Thus, the number of active cases or patients requiring treatment reached a total of 380,797 people.