BPOM Allows Domestic Vaccines For InaVac Vaccination For COVID-19 Dossage 1 And 2 Doses

Illustration of the COVID-19 vaccine for boosters. (Antarananews)

JAKARTA - The Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) has issued a permit to use the domestically made InaVac vaccine for vaccination doses 1 and 2 or primary

"The Emergency Use Authorization/EUA for the InaVac Vaccine produced by PT Biotis Pharmaceutical Indonesia is announced," said Head of BPOM RI Penny K Lukito today, Friday, November 4.

"With gratitude, today BPOM announced the approval to use the EUA for the domestic production of the COVID-19 vaccine under the name InaVac, as one of the Red and White Vaccines," said Penny.

He said the inactivated virus platform vaccine was developed by researchers from Universitas Airlangga or Unair and was produced by PT Biotis at a production facility domiciled in Gunung Sindur, Bogor Regency, West Java.

InaVac's primary vaccine is approved to stimulate body immunity against SARS-CoV-2 for the prevention of COVID-19 in people aged 18 years and over.

The vaccine is given for two doses of injection interval per injection for 28 days with an efficacy equivalent to the CoronaVac Vaccine.

According to Penny, the InaVac vaccine has been tested with a number of the latest variants of the Coronavirus.

"The pharmaceutical industry is committed to fulfilling its quality and with the approval of the InaVac vaccine on behalf of PT Biotis for primary vaccination, it has begun to support the independence of the domestic COVID-19 vaccine," he said.

BPOM appreciates the Expert Team of the National Committee for Assessing COVID-19 Vaccine and Indonesian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI) for their cooperation in InaVac vaccine research for public use.

According to Penny, InaVac's primary vaccine production is already underway and will be combined with the initial launch for use by the public in the near future.

"The distribution process is at the Ministry of Health because there will be the government's purchase and procurement of the InaVac vaccine," he said.

At the same event, Unair researcher Prof. Fedix Abdul Rantam said InaVac's primary dose test results in the latest SARS-CoV-2 variant with good results and high protection.

"We believe this vaccine has a good ability to neutralize infections from the initial virus to the latest," he said.

According to Fedix, the current new variants, namely XBB and XBC, have mild symptoms. "With a comparison using the virulent Delta variant, the test neutralization results are good," he said.

Director of PT Biotis Pharmaceutical Indonesia FX Sudirman said production for the primary dose stage of InaVac reached 5 million doses by the end of 2022.

"The expectations from the Ministry of Health in November 2022 must be usable, because the domestic stock of vaccines is currently limited," he concluded.