In the last three years, Indonesia increased (the number of) vaccine manufacturing companies from one to three.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin on Thursday listed the achievements made toward building health resilience, one of the six pillars of the health transformation, ahead of the 59th National Health Day on November 12.

"In the last three years, Indonesia increased (the number of) vaccine manufacturing companies from one to three," he pointed out at the Health Innovation and Technology Exhibition, which was followed online from here.

The exhibition was part of the National Health Day commemoration events.

The three vaccine manufacturing companies consist of one state-run company and two private companies, Minister Sadikin informed.

In addition, the country's vaccine industry is also supported by advances in technology in producing vaccines.

"There are four vaccine manufacturing technologies in the world, the old ones are virus- and protein-based, which Bio Farma does. There are the modern vector-based ones such as AstraZeneca, and the mRNA-based ones such as Pfizer, which we were not able to make before," Sadikin added.

He said that Indonesia has increased its production capacity for medicinal raw materials. Earlier, the country needed to import 90 percent of raw materials for making medicines.

To reduce this dependence on imports, the government has tried to compile a list of 10 medicinal raw materials that need to be imported, he added.

Some raw materials that need to be imported are fever reducer paracetamol, heart disease drug clopidogrel, and cardiovascular disease prevention drug atorvastatin.

"Among others, we had to import these drugs and now, we can produce nine of the ten raw materials (that were imported)," he informed.

Furthermore, the government has increased spending on domestic-made medical devices and medicines from around Rp4.5 trillion (US$287 million) in 2020 to more than Rp9 trillion (US$574 million) as of July 2023.

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Translator: Sean M, Kenzu
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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