Bad News From South Sumatra: COVID-19 Vaccine Stock Runs Out, Vaccination Temporarily Postponed

South Sumatra Provincial Health Office officers distribute vaccines from a vaccination warehouse in Palembang (Photo: M Riezko Bima Elko/Antara)

JAKARTA - The province of South Sumatra (Sumsel) has run out of stock of COVID-19 vaccines for the past week, so several health facilities have temporarily suspended vaccinations for target groups.

Head of the South Sumatra Provincial Health Office, Lesty Nuraini, said that South Sumatra had received vaccine distribution of 1.6 million doses of Sinovac Biofarm and AstraZeneca vaccines from the central government from January to July 2021.

However, all doses of vaccine received have been distributed to every health facility spread across 17 districts/cities.

"There are no more stored doses, now everything has been distributed, the stock is empty," he said as quoted by Antara, Thursday, July 22.

Therefore, South Sumatra currently requires the distribution of additional vaccines from the central government so that 433 district/city health facilities can continue to vaccinate, of which only 14 percent of the population is vaccinated for the first dose and 6 percent for the second dose.

If the vaccine stock vacancies are left long enough, the target for communal immunity of at least 70 percent of the people of South Sumatra will not be achieved on time.

"The target is that by early 2022 all of them have been vaccinated or at least 70 percent of the total population of South Sumatra," he said.

According to him, to reach all vaccination targets consisting of health workers, public servants, the elderly, teachers and students ideally get 150,000 vials of vaccine per month but so far, South Sumatra only gets 30,000 vials/dose of vaccine per month.

The condition of the vaccine shortage has been conveyed by the Governor of South Sumatra Herman Deru who is also the head of the regional COVID-19 task force to the Ministry of Health.

According to him, the government will immediately distribute an additional 67,900 doses of vaccine, but there is no certainty when the vaccine will be sent, including the type of vaccine to be received.