The Indonesian Health Ministry is developing a strategy to administer 300 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine scheduled to arrive in Indonesia, from August to December 2021.

“We will be receiving 300 million doses of vaccine starting from August to December,” the ministry’s spokesperson for COVID-19 vaccination, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated here on Friday.

Tarmizi pointed out that the quantity of incoming vaccines will bolster mass vaccination activities underway since January 13, 2021.

The ministry’s spokesperson noted that the government had distributed at least 69 million vaccine doses since January 2021.

The figure has only touched the range of 60-70 million doses of vaccine from the total sent by manufacturers to Indonesia, reaching some 152 million doses.

Indonesia targets to vaccinate 208 million of its people to achieve herd immunity. On account of the two mandated vaccine doses per person, the country will require at least 426 million doses.

“Our challenge is to double the vaccination scale. If earlier, we had to inject approximately 150 million doses, now it has doubled or about 300 million doses of vaccine,” she remarked.

The Health Ministry had discussed a strategy to accelerate vaccination to achieve the daily target of two million injection doses until December 2021.

“We were able to control the increase in the number of cases that occurred in early June to July. Now, we have to formulate strategies to complete the administration of 300 million doses,” Tarmizi expounded.

The spokesperson noted that efforts to distribute vaccines to 34 provinces will be conducted in stages in accordance with the availability of vaccines.

“We also had to produce this vaccine. Some of them are still in the form of raw material that must be processed to be finally distributed,” Tarmizi remarked.

Vaccines also have to undergo a quality control process to ensure their safety.

Source: Antara News