Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin confirmed to a surge in demand for the COVID-19 booster vaccine after the emergence of the Omicron sub-variant called XBB in Indonesia.
“The vaccination rate increased slightly in November. Earlier, it was around 34 thousand injections per day, down from the previous two million per day. It has now increased due to a new variant. The booster vaccine injections were rising to 62 thousand per day,” Sadikin stated during his working meeting with Commission IX of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) in Jakarta on Tuesday.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, as of November 8, 2022, the first dose of COVID-19 vaccination had covered 87.45 percent of the vaccination target of 234,666,020 people.
The second and third dose of vaccination, or the first booster dose, had covered 73.31 percent and 27.91 percent of the target, respectively.
The fourth dose of vaccination, or the second booster dose, was recorded to have covered 46.75 percent of the total 1,468,764 health workers targeted for vaccination.
The minister remarked that the domestic stockpile of COVID-19 vaccine was still around six million doses and is estimated to be sufficient to meet the needs for the next 100 days.
“With the rate of injections in November reaching 62,000 per day, the existing stock of around six million doses of vaccine is sufficient for 90 to 100 days,” he remarked.
He noted that the COVID-19 vaccine supply includes more than 5.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, 348 thousand doses of the Janssen vaccine, 15 thousand doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, and around 200 thousand doses of the Zifivax vaccine.
“Around 2.5 million doses of them have been distributed to all regions in the third weekend of October 2022 to maintain sufficient vaccine stock in regions,” he remarked.
Sadikin noted that the government had brought in 5.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to meet the needs of vaccination until the domestically made vaccines — IndoVac produced by PT Bio Farma and InaVac manufactured by PT Biotis Pharmaceutical Indonesia — were ready to be used.
“There is a slight setback from the readiness of domestic vaccines. Maybe it will be used this November,” he added.
Source: Antara News