Illustration: COVID-19 vaccine. (Image via UNICEF)

Indonesia's vaccination only reaches 2 percent from its 181.5 mil target

Indonesia's Health Ministry recorded 3,696,059 people have received the first dose of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine. From the target of 181,554,465 Indonesian people, the number means only 2.03 percent of the target has been fulfilled.

From the 2.03 percent, 1,295,615 Indonesian people have been inoculated with the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical company, Sinovac with its CoronaVac. Indonesia commenced its mass vaccination program on 13 January. The President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo (Jokowi), his Ministers, state officials, and public figures kickstarted the inoculations.

In the first stage, the Indonesian Government aimed to vaccinate 1,468,764 medical workers in 34 provinces by the end of February. However, as the deadline passed by, the target has not been 100 percent fulfilled. By Friday last week, the mass vaccination for the medical workers is only 95.25 percent complete.

On 17 February, the Indonesian Government kickstarted the second stage. In the second stage, the Indonesian Government aimed at 17,327,196 public service officials and 21,553,118 elderly people. According to the data, 1,767,209 public service officials or 10.2 percent have been jabbed by the COVID-19 vaccine.

The public service officials are education practitioners, religious figures, people's representatives, government officials, and civil servants. Next, the security officials; tourism, hotel, and restaurant officials; firefighters, regional disaster management agency (BPBD), state-owned enterprises (BUMN), regional-owned enterprises (BUMD), and village officials. The list goes on to employees of public transportation, athletes, to journalists.

Meanwhile, for the elderly, the vaccination program has been only 2.44 percent, or 525,981 people, fulfilled with the first CoronaVac dose.

JOKOWI'S TARGET

Initially, Jokowi wanted the mass COVID-19 vaccination program to finish in 12 months or a year. However, speaking on Friday last week, the Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, told that the reasonable target would be 15 months.

The Health Ministry set the timeline of the COVID-19 vaccination in Indonesia. The first phase of vaccination ran in January-February 2021 for the medical workers, while the second stage is running from February to April for the public service officials and the elderly. The third phase, from April 2021-March 2022, aims to vaccinate the general society according to the availability of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Budi is certain that the Health Ministry might be able to pull off one million vaccination daily by June 2021. The optimism is supported by the arrival of 300 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in June-December 2021.

On Tuesday, the Deputy Health Minister, Dante Saksono, stated that it would be difficult to finish the vaccination program in a year unless one million vaccinations daily are made. Speaking at the 2021 Coordination Meeting for Disaster Control, Dante said that the Ministry is struggling to realize the one million vaccinations per day target. Therefore, Dante and the team are inviting some stakeholders to help them fulfill the target.

Currently, the COVID-19 vaccines used are from Sinovac and Bio Farma. Days ago, about 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Indonesia and immediately received emergency use authorization (EUA) from Indonesia's national drug and food control (BPOM).

Source: https://bit.ly/38w058N