"This 99 percent is the proportion of people who have antibodies, but the levels are varied," she said at a press conference on the 2023 serosurvey here on Friday.
Munira pointed out that, based on the results of the third serosurvey, the people who had the highest level of antibodies were those who had received the booster vaccine dose.
Thus, the more complete the vaccination that people have received, the higher will be their antibody level and the lower will be the risk of severe illness or even death due to COVID-19 infection, she added.
According to her, the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently circulating in Indonesia cannot prevent human-to-human transmission yet.
"But the current vaccines can prevent the severity of the condition when we contract COVID-19," she added.
At the same press conference, an epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono, said that the second booster vaccination is being prioritized to protect people with the highest risk of infection, namely older adults and people with comorbidities.
"Unfortunately, this survey has not been able to answer whether a second booster is really needed, but we see that there is concern among people if it (second booster) is only prioritized for health workers and older adults," he added.
"If the community wants it, it is not wrong for the government to open a second booster option for people aged 18 and over," he said.
Riono further said that based on the serosurvey, those who have completed the primary doses and received the first booster have been shown to have the highest antibody levels and low risk of hospitalization and fatality upon infection.
On Friday, the Ministry of Health announced that based on the results of the latest serosurvey conducted in January this year (the third serosurvey carried out since December 2021), 99 percent of the Indonesian population has developed antibodies against COVID-19.
The Indonesian government started the provision of the second booster to people aged 18 years and over on January 24, 2023.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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