"We have not thought of a policy because the (application of) EUA (emergency use authorization) is difficult to be conducted. The operational age is short, 16-17 years. For those aged 18 years, it has already been implemented," the ministry's Director General of Disease Prevention and Control, Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, stated when contacted here on Tuesday.
The statement was made in response to the policy of the National Agency of Drug and Food Control (BPOM) that allowed the provision of Pfizer vaccine as booster doses for children aged 16-18 years as of August 2, 2022.
The BPOM stated that Pfizer booster doses could be given at least six months after the second-dose vaccination to children administered the Pfizer vaccine for the first- and second- (homologous) dose vaccinations.
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Rondonuwu drew attention to the fact that the homologous booster requirement for the Pfizer vaccine also posed an obstacle since the number of citizens aged 16-17 that had received the Pfizer vaccine for the first- and second-dose vaccinations was relatively small.
He estimated that the number of Pfizer recipients among people in the age group of 16-17 years was less than two million.
"Meanwhile, 90 percent of the adolescents in Indonesia were inoculated with the Sinovac vaccine," he stated.
According to Rondonuwu, the Ministry of Health is currently pursuing the target of booster coverage for people aged 18 years and above, for which the coverage, so far, has only reached 30 percent. As part of the efforts to boost community immunity against COVID-19, the Indonesian government launched a nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021, targeting as many as 208,265,720 citizens across the country.
According to data provided by the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, as of Tuesday, August 9, 2022, as many as 202,772,014 Indonesians had received the first vaccine dose, 170,322,263 had been administered the second dose, and 57,553,217 had taken the booster dose.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Raka Adji
Editor: Suharto
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