Coronavirus vaccines arrive but Jokowi is waiting

Indonesia’s President says he is waiting for ‘scientific consideration and clinical trial results’ before deciding the start of the country’s mass COVID-19 vaccination program.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Picture: AFP

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo says he is waiting for “scientific consideration and clinical trial results­” before deciding the start of the country’s mass COVID-19 vaccination program, after an initial shipment of 1.2 million doses of vaccine arrived from Beijing.

“All procedures must be followed to ensure public health and safety,” said Jokowi, as he is commonly known, in a statement following a televised livestream of the unloading of vaccine containers at Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta Airport on Sunday night.

“It is also important to plan the distribution of vaccines to other regions and the readiness of supporti­ng tools and human resource­s.”

He added that the government was expecting another 1.8 million doses next month and the raw materials­ to produce 15 million doses of the vaccines locally.

On Monday, Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said the vaccines would immediately be used to inoculate doctors, nurses, and other health workers, pending regulatory approval.

“The vaccine will receive an emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, in accordance with scientific and statutory provisions,” said the minister.

Indonesia has been testing the vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech­ since August in a clinical trial study in West Java with about 1600 volunteers.

Clinical research team leader Kusnandi Rusmil said he was “pleased” with the results so far and would present an interim report to the monitoring agency in January.

“I can say that it’s safe for use and now we are just looking at its immunogenicity after one, three, and six months post-vaccin­ation,” Professor Rusmil told The Aust­ralian.

The arrival of the vaccine is largely heralded as a game changer in Indonesia’s desperate fight against the pandemic, as hospitals report having to turn away patients due to high occupancy rates.

The daily number of new infections and coronavirus-related deaths have steadily risen in recent weeks, bringing the total number of cases to more than 500,000, with 17,740 deaths, the highest in Southeast Asia.

The last daily record was 8369 new cases on December 3, prompting an impassioned plea from the COVID-19 taskforce chief, reminding the public to abide by health protocols.

Indonesia’s COVID-19 management and recovery program, often mired by miscommunication and misdirected funds, will face a new challenge this week as 100 million voters go to the polls for local elections on Wednesday.

Campaign rallies are already thought to have contributed to reports of the consistently high number of new infections daily and experts have warned that potential crowds at polling stations could lead to an “explosion of new COVID-19 infection clusters”.

Last weekend, Social Affairs Minister Juliari Batubara was appre­hended by anti-corruption officials in a sting operation, for alleg­edly pocketing funds meant for the national COVID-19 assistance program. The minister is said to have skimmed 17 billion rupiah ($1.6m) from funds to provide food packets for the needy.

Indonesia’s health officials have said they were placing orders with several vaccine suppliers ­besides Sinovac, including AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer.

The government has earmarked a budget of 34 trillion ­rup­iah for vaccine procurement and mass vaccinations through next year, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said last month.

Public health expert Pandu Riono has questioned the transparency of the deal between Sinovac and the government, and warned the public against becoming “complacent and euphoric” with the arrival of vaccines.

“I’m surprised that the government has jumped to a secondary prevention method by procuring vaccines, while the primary prevent­ion method is a mess,” Dr Riono said. “Besides, the Sinovac vaccine probably has the lowest efficac­y among all the other vaccine­ candidates.”

The national COVID-19 taskforce claimed that preparations for a “cold chain” were nearly complete, as Indonesia faces the daunting task of establishing an effective­ system to transport the vaccine at low temperature.

“The preparation for cold chain has reached 97 per cent across Indon­esia,” taskforce spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said last month.