"We are working with the North Maluku Religious Affairs Office, the police, and the local Health Office, targeting schools and Islamic boarding schools in this area," Regional Head of BIN-North Maluku Office Brigadier General Imam Sopingi said in Ternate on Thursday.
He said that the mass COVID-19 vaccinations carried out at schools are meant not just for students, but for teachers and the general public. Vaccines are expected to increase the body's resistance against the coronavirus, he added.
The mass vaccinations are being carried out in order to support the central government's program to achieve herd immunity and combat the pandemic, he said.
President Joko Widodo is seeking to have 70 percent of Indonesians vaccinated by the end of 2021.
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An expert from Center for Indonesian Policy Study (CIPS), Andree Surianta, has forecast that the state could vaccinate 2.7 million people per day should more vaccine stocks from overseas arrive in Indonesia.
According to BIN's Sopingi, the agency is currently looking to inoculate as many as five thousand people in North Maluku.
"We have just carried out mass vaccination activities in the districts of East Halmahera and Taliabu Island as well as the cities of Tidore Islands and Ternate," he informed.
As per data released by the North Maluku Health Office, 147,330 people, or just 15.4 percent of the population, spread across 10 districts and cities in the region have received the first vaccine dose.
Meanwhile, just 75,354 people, or 7.9 percent, have received the second dose of the vaccine.
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Translator: Abdul Fatah, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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