The vaccine will be allocated for public service officers, including the TNI (Indonesian Military) and Polri (the Indonesian Police), starting since the end of February.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - State-owned vaccine manufacturer PT Bio Farma (Persero) confirmed that the COVID-19 vaccine for public service officers, including the Indonesian military and police, will be allocated at the end of February.

Bio Farma spokesman Bambang Heriyanto stated that the Food and Drug Control Agency (BPOM) will issue the lot release of the vaccine produced by Bio Farma, and the first batch of the vaccine production is expected to be completed in mid-February.

"The vaccine will be allocated for public service officers, including the TNI (Indonesian Military) and Polri (the Indonesian Police), starting since the end of February," Heriyanto stated at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, on Tuesday.

The COVID-19 vaccine bulk, after being processed into a vaccine, must undergo a series of rigorous quality tests conducted by the Bio Farma laboratory and BPOM to ensure that it has met the quality standards.

"To maintain the quality of the vaccines, Bio Farma applies an integrated vaccine distribution system equipped with an Internet of Things (IoT) dashboard in the process," he explained.

The shot will be named COVID-19 Vaccine and have a different packaging from the earlier distributed vaccine, CoronaVac.

The previous three million CoronaVac shots were produced as single doses wherein each vial contained one dose, placed into boxes containing 40 vials each.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 Vaccine, currently under the production process at Bio Farma, will be processed as multi-dose packages, where each vial contains 10 doses, and each box will contain 10 vials.

"However, the quality of the vaccine will not be different," he stated.

Indonesia has received another 10 million doses of the semi-finished coronavirus vaccine and one million overfill doses of the coronavirus vaccine from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd.

The fourth batch of the COVID-19 vaccine arrived at the Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Tangerang, Banten Province, on Tuesday morning.

Up until now, the ministry has received 28 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine and vaccine candidate.

Indonesia has ordered the COVID-19 vaccine from various sources: 125 million doses from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd; 100 million doses of US-Canada's Novavax; 100 million doses from British AstraZeneca; 100 million doses from Germany-US' Pfizer; and 16-100 million doses of free vaccine from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) as part of a multilateral cooperation. Related news: 539,532 healthcare workers given COVID shots so far
Related news: COVID jab given to 482,145 medical workers: Health Ministry

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Translator: Aji Cakti, Sri Haryati
Editor: Suharto
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