Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Health Ministry urged people, who had yet to complete their COVID-19 vaccine dosage, to obtain vaccination services at the nearest health facilities and vaccination service posts without further ado.

"The people can now obtain any existing COVID-19 vaccines," Ministry's Spokesperson Mohammad Syahril stated here on Friday.

The ministry urged all provincial and district and city health office heads, hospital chiefs, and directors as well as the health service facility leadership to facilitate the provision of COVID-19 vaccinations in their regions.

To complete the primary and booster doses, people can opt for taking any type of existing COVID vaccines, Syahril explained.

"The point is that any vaccines can be used for the first, second, third, and fourth doses. However, for booster, there should still be a six-month gap," he stated.

According to the clinical trial result of various COVID-19 vaccine platforms, in general, individuals' antibody titers will decline after six months of having taken the second vaccination.

"Thus, there should be a booster to increase the number of antibody titers for long-term protection," he emphasized.

To this day, a large group of people had still not received the complete dose of COVID-19 vaccination.

There are also those that have received the primary dose but have not taken the booster dose.

"The use of various existing COVID-19 vaccine types is intended to facilitate the people in completing their COVID-19 vaccine doses," he stated.

The best vaccine is the current existing vaccine and can be given using the COVID-19 vaccine platform that had received the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the National Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM), Syahril noted.

"To this end, for the people, who have not completed their primary and advance or booster dose, they can be given COVID-19 vaccination using existing vaccines," he stated.

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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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