New batches of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Indonesia

JAKARTA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- New batches of COVID-19 vaccines produced by Chinese pharmaceutical companies arrived at Indonesia's Soekarno-Hatta Airport on Friday, an Indonesian official said.

"Today, 6 million doses of bulk COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd and 482,400 ready-to-use vaccines from the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) have arrived," Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny Plate said.

Indonesia has received a total of 65.5 million doses of bulk COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac, as well as 8.448 million doses of ready-to-use vaccines from Sinovac, Sinopharm, and AstraZeneca through the COVAX Facility initiated by the World Health Organization.

The bulk from Sinovac that arrived Friday will be brought to the state-company PT Bio Farma office to be processed into ready-to-use vaccines.

Meanwhile, the vaccine produced by Sinopharm will be used for a mutual vaccination scheme locally known as "Gotong Royong", where companies or legal entities can arrange the COVID-19 vaccine rollout for their employees for free to help the country achieve herd immunity faster.

Indonesia's Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) has just issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Sinopharm vaccine.

"We are announcing that an emergency use authorization has been given for a vaccine produced by the Beijing Biological Products Institute under Sinopharm," chief of BPOM Penny Lukito said Friday.