Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin underscored the need for more discussions and conferences to eliminate tuberculosis by 2030, including by taking bold and aggressive action, especially in the vaccine development process.
"We will hear the latest news about the 15 ongoing tuberculosis vaccine clinical trials around the world," he noted in a statement on Thursday.
Over the past 200 years, tuberculosis has claimed more than one billion lives. Even today, he said, the disease kills more than four thousand people every day, or one life every 20 seconds.
Hence, he noted that Indonesia played a more active role in the global efforts to overcome challenges and fight tuberculosis.
Despite being a country with the second-highest number of tuberculosis cases, Sadikin noted that Indonesia was earlier excluded from the multicenter vaccine trial due to legal constraints.
"However, we have worked hard to resolve this long-standing issue, removing barriers to enable broader collaboration in clinical research," the minister remarked.
Indonesia is currently conducting trials for three tuberculosis vaccines, including the M72/AS01E vaccine by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline.
Sadikin explained that Indonesia began vaccinating subjects for the phase 3 clinical trials on September 20, 2024, following earlier starts in South Africa and Kenya.
Meanwhile, Indonesia will participate in the phase 2 trial of the BNT164a1 vaccine by BioNTech and Biofarma after completing the phase 1 trial of the mRNA tuberculosis vaccine candidate.
In addition, the country is involved in the AdHu5Ag85A vaccine trial by CanSinoBio and Etana, where Indonesia is involved in phase 1 of the clinical trial of CanSinoBio's viral vector TB vaccine candidate.
"We are optimistic that one of these trials will be completed in 2028, paving the way for the advancement of the latest TB vaccine as soon as possible," Sadikin added.
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Translator: Mecca Yumna Ning Prisie, Yashinta Difa
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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