As many as 70 percent or 71 thousand health workers registered as Jakarta residents have received the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, as per the Jakarta Health Office’s records.
“Seventy percent (of health workers) have received the booster. That is (the figure) for health workers who are registered as Jakarta residents,” head of the disease prevention and control division of the Jakarta Health Office, Dwi Oktavia, informed here on Tuesday.
She said that her office will continue to ramp up third dose vaccinations for health workers while awaiting the Ministry of Health’s technical instructions on administering the booster vaccination to the general public.
The Health Office is also still waiting for the ministry’s direction on whether to prioritize booster doses for Sinovac recipients or not, considering that the Sinovac vaccine’s efficacy, based on information from the National Agency of Drug and Food Control (BPOM), is 65.3 percent, or lower than several other vaccine brands used in Indonesia, such as Pfizer and Moderna, whose efficacy is above 90 percent, the official disclosed.
In addition, the office is waiting for information regarding the vaccine brand to be administered for the booster dose, and whether the booster must be from the same brand as the first and second doses or not, Oktavia said.
Earlier, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin had said that the third dose would be administered to fully vaccinated people aged 18 and above who had completed six months since the last dose.
“We identified that there were around 21 million targets in January who met the criteria,” he said in a statement released by the Presidential Office on Monday.
The minister added that booster vaccinations would be given in districts and cities where the vaccination coverage has reached 70 percent for the first dose and 60 percent for the second dose.
So far, 244 cities and districts have met the criteria, he noted.
Sadikin affirmed that the government has secured around 113 million doses for the booster vaccine out of the 230 million doses needed.
Source: Antara News