The Indonesian government has again increased the number of vaccines available in the country, with the arrival of 684,900 AstraZeneca vaccine doses under the 73rd batch of vaccine arrival on Wednesday.

“With this addition, the total number of AstraZeneca vaccine received by Indonesia has reached 24,520,300 doses,” the Indonesian Ministry of Health’s spokesperson for vaccination, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, noted in a written statement received here.

Tarmizi remarked that this 73rd stage of vaccine arrival had brought the total number of vaccines in the country to over 268 million doses, both in finished and bulk form.

The spokesperson noted that as of Tuesday, September 21, 2021, at 6 p.m. local time, some 81 million citizens had received the first dose of vaccination, while around 46 million Indonesians were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which indicated that 39 out of 100 citizens targeted to receive the vaccine had been given the first dose.

Tarmizi remarked that so far, the first dose of vaccination for adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age has reached 12.68 percent of the target. Meanwhile, the second-dose vaccination was administered to 8.68 percent of the total targeted adolescents.

She also addressed the low vaccination achievement among older adults, which has not shown significant improvement so far. From the targeted 21.5 million, only some 27.75 percent had received the first dose of the vaccine, while 19.40 percent of the targeted figure had been fully vaccinated.

“Support from all parties is deemed necessary to push vaccinations for older adults as we all know that they are at a higher risk of mortality if infected by the COVID-19 virus,” she noted.

Source: Antara News