Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi. (Image via Republika)

Indonesia asks for COVID-19 vaccine storage system from COVAX

Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi, stated that Indonesia is going to submit documents on 8 January 2021 regarding the vaccination program for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to COVAX, a global initiative to help developing countries obtaining access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Speaking on Thursday during the press conference on the Arrival of the Second Stage of the COVID-19 Vaccine, Retno stated that one of the documents is a request for the procurement of the cold chain equipment (CCE) support system for the COVID-19 vaccine. She explained that the document is to complete the two previous documents sent to COVAX, a request for the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cooperating with the Ministry of Health and other related stakeholders will coordinate to ensure that the domestic infrastructure for the COVID-19 vaccine's logistics is in accordance with the requirement of the purchased vaccines. Previously, the Ministry of National Development Planning of the Republic of Indonesia (PPN/Bappenas) stated that Indonesia had ordered about 371 million dosages of COVID-19 vaccines from various foreign pharmaceutical companies.

Speaking on Monday, the Deputy of Economic Affairs at Bappenas, Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti, stated that the figure came from the COVID-19 Handling and Acceleration of National Economy Recovery Committee (KPC-PEN). Amalia stated that by 2022, there will be 371 million COVID-19 vaccines. Those vaccines are:

1. Sinovac (116 million dosages by 2021)

2. Novavax (52 million dosages by 2021)

3. Pfizer-BioNTech (45 million dosages by 2021)

4. AstraZeneca-Oxford (50 million dosages by 2021)

5. COVAX (12 million dosages by 2021)

COVAX's vaccine is similar to the vaccines produced by AstraZeneca-Oxford, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Sinovac. For 2022, Indonesia had ordered vaccines from Sinovac and Novavax, totaling 87 million dosages

Source: https://bit.ly/34ZTVvN