President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said on Monday that the country would have the ability to procure around 290 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2021.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the research and development of the vaccine were carried out by the Eijkman Molecular Biology Board (LBM), in collaboration with a Chinese company, using Indonesian native viral DNA.
“We can produce more and if we have more, it can be sold to other countries, because in ASEAN I see no one is ready (to produce) vaccines,” he said at the Jakarta National Palace, as broadcast on local television today.
Local media had previously reported that Indonesia through LBM, a body under the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology, has been working with Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech to conduct research on the Covid-19 vaccine over the past few months. It is reported that the vaccine is now entering the third phase of testing and if successful, Indonesia will release 290 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, according to the Indonesian government’s official website regarding Covid-19, www.covid19.go.id yesterday, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases in Indonesia continued to increase to 155,412 cases, while the overall death toll rose to 6,759 people.
For the 12 noon period yesterday until 12 noon yesterday, a further 79 deaths occurred, while a total of 1,877 new positive cases were recorded during the period.
Sources: The Jakarta Post, Newsdetik.com