We are waiting for instructions from the Health Ministry to distribute the vaccinesJakarta (ANTARA) - A total of 11,981,034 Indonesians have been administered the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday, according to the Task Force for COVID-19 Handling.
As many as 136,455 people received their first vaccine dose in a single day on Tuesday, while the tally of fully vaccinated recipients (who have received both the doses) reached 7,178,768, including 180,464 people who got their second vaccine jab in the last 24 hours.
The COVID-19 Task Force is targeting to inoculate 40,349,049 Indonesian citizens as part of efforts to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said that Indonesia has received additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Sinovac and AstraZeneca.
Indonesia received 3.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX facility, coordinated under the GAVI scheme, on April 26, 2021. In May, 2021, it is expecting to receive another 2 x 3.8 million doses of the vaccine, Sadikin informed.
With the arrival of the additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to Indonesia, the government is planning to again accelerate the pace of the mass vaccination program, the minister said. It had earlier reduced the intensity of vaccinations to maintain the availability of vaccine stocks in the country.
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Meanwhile, state-run pharmaceutical firm PT Bio Farma said it is awaiting the Health Ministry’s instructions to distribute AstraZeneca’s 3.8 million vaccine doses, received as part of the second batch of vaccines from the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical firm based in Britain.
"We are waiting for instructions from the Health Ministry to distribute the vaccines," Bio Farma's corporate secretary, Bambang Heriyanto, informed in a statement released here on Tuesday.
On March 3, 2021, the company had received 1.1 million doses of the first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine and distributed them to regions.
In the second batch, the company has obtained 3.852 million doses of the vaccine packed in 38,520 boxes.
"After receiving the second batch supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will keep them in a special storage and maintain the temperature between two and eight degrees Celsius," Heriyanto, concurrently the government's spokesperson for the vaccination program, stated.
With the delivery of the second vaccine batch, the government, as of Tuesday, has obtained a total of 67,465,600 doses, including Sinovac's vaccine from China.
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Translator: Devi NSR, Fardah
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
