RI Vaccination Ranks 5th In The World, Minister Of Health Budi Gunadi: Up One Level Following Japan

Illustration. (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the number of COVID-19 vaccination achievements in the country was in the 5th largest in the world. He said that currently there are 94 million people in Indonesia who have received the first dose of vaccine.

"Indonesia is ranked 5th in the world. We have moved up one level because we have overtaken Japan, which is around 80 million people," Budi said in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, October 4.

Meanwhile, for the number of doses used, Indonesia is now ranked sixth in the world because it has injected 148 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since last January. "And we have exceeded 2 million per day this September," said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs.

Minister of Health Budi explained that Indonesia had received 222 million doses of vaccine, of which 193 million had been sent to various regions. Of these, 143 million vaccines have also been injected into the community.

"So the total stock we have is still around 70 million, which is still quite a lot and now we are continuing to talk about how to accelerate this vaccination," said Budi.

Previously reported, Indonesia has received a number of vaccines to meet domestic needs. Most recently, the government received 800,000 doses of Pfizwe vaccine from the United States government.

"With the arrival of the 84th stage of the vaccine, the vaccines that have arrived in the country have reached 276,960,670 doses," said Director General of Information and Public Communication of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kominfo) Usman Kansong in his statement, Sunday, October 3.

Usman said that the fulfillment of vaccination needs in Indonesia was achieved in various ways, starting from direct purchases as well as bilateral and multilateral cooperation. This is done to pursue the target of 70 percent of vaccine receipts by the Indonesian people by the end of this year.

He also said that Indonesia is among the top 10 countries with the highest number of vaccinations in the world. Even so, Usman underlined that the vaccination program should not be relaxed.

"The government invites all people to be vaccinated immediately, there is no need to be picky about vaccines, because all vaccines are safe and efficacious," he said.