JAKARTA, Dec 7 — Indonesia received 1.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from China last night.
The Presidential Secretariat’s press, media, and information bureau in a statement said the first shipment of the vaccine arrived in Jakarta at 9.25 pm from Beijing via a Garuda Indonesia flight.
President Joko Widodo said Indonesia is expected to receive another 1.8 million doses in early January next year.
“Alhamdulillah, the vaccine is now available which means that we can immediately prevent the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak,” he said via the President’s Secretariat official YouTube channel.
Local media reported that Indonesia through the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, a body under the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology was working with China’s biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech to conduct COVID-19 vaccine research.
Based on data posted on the official Twitter page of the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency @BNPB_Indonesia, as of yesterday, the republic recorded 575,796 positive COVID-19 cases involving 17,740 fatalities.
Sources: BERNAMA