Vice Chairperson of Commission IX of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia, Charles Honoris, speaks during a working meeting with Minister of Health, Thursday (8/4/2021). Photo: Mentari/nvl

The COVID-19 Vaccine-producing countries still put exports of its vaccines on hold. The situation may cause a disruption to the vaccine supply in Indonesia, which the country urgently needs for its vaccination programme. The topic was raised in the working meeting between Commission IX of the Indonesian House and Minister of Health, Thursday (8/4/2021)

Vice Chairperson of Commission IX of the Indonesian House chaired the meeting and stated that his side would like to ask for clarification from the government regarding the vaccine procurement issue. “The procurement of certain vaccines, especially the AstraZeneca vaccine has been a large topic of conversation. Commission IX would like to seek clarification in this regard about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine for our national vaccination programme,” Honoris said in the meeting.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin explained that Indonesia is currently ranked eighth out of 60 countries in the world that have rolled out the vaccination programme right behind Germany, Turkey, Brazil, UK, India, and the USA. The biggest challenge in the vaccination programme is the availability of the vaccines.

“There are five vaccine-producing countries that have imposed an export ban on the vaccines they produced: the US, China, India, UK, and Russia. . This means that vaccines that are produced, for example, in the US, can only be used in the US, and so is the case in the UK,” the Minister expressed. (mh/es)