"For the vaccine, it is around Rp50 trillion, we have used Rp28.2 trillion," he informed at a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.
According to Sadikin, there is a possibility of cost savings because the government has managed to get quite a lot of free vaccines from a number of producers and friendly countries.
He also detailed the absorption of government funds issued for medicines and the treatment of COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
"In terms of medicines, we actually become one as a hospital claim, because what is claimed to the government is medicine and health services at the hospital," the minister explained.
The amount of funds absorbed for medicines and treatment has been pegged at around Rp36 trillion, he informed.
"But maybe it (absorption of funds) will increase again until the end of the year because it is only until April-May 2021," he said.
Sadikin said that the treatment costs of patients when COVID-19 cases spiked in June-August 2021 are still in the process of being counted.
"We had a spike in COVID-19 cases in June-August, so we have not calculated it, maybe there will be an addition to the Rp36-trillion figure that we said earlier," he added.
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The Health Minister had earlier confirmed that the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Indonesia has shown an increase in the last two weeks.
"We have observed that there have been 105 districts/cities across 34 provinces in Indonesia which have started to show a rise in COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks," he said on Monday.
Since July 2021, the number of positive COVID-19 cases in all regions in Indonesia had tended to decline, he noted.
However, recently, infections have increased again, he said adding, fortunately, they are still within the safe limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Still, we are trying to anticipate it. We should not be euphoric excessively due to the decline and let our guard down. We will strive to control the rise in those 105 districts/cities," he emphasized.
Indonesia added 460 COVID-19 confirmed cases and 30 deaths on Monday, taking the total confirmed cases to more than 4.2 million and total deaths to more than 143 thousand, official data has shown.
Related news: Government allocates Rp73 trillion for vaccine procurement
Translator: Andi F, Azis Kurmala
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
