Indonesia will soon have a domestically made Covid-19 vaccine. The President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, directly named it the Indovac vaccine. Currently, the Indovac vaccine is still in phase III clinical trials. Then, when will this vaccine be released?
Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir said that his party is targeting that in the first or second week of September 2022 the Indovac vaccine can be released to the public.
“We are still waiting for the clinical trial report from BPOM,” he said at the Ministry of SOEs Building, Monday (22/2).
The Indovac clinical trial involved 3,000 volunteers with satisfactory results.
Honesti said the Indovac vaccine will be focused on injecting a booster or third vaccine and injecting vaccines to children. This year, the Indovac vaccine will be provided free of charge to the public, considering that the government still bears the cost of making and distributing the vaccine through the state budget.
Meanwhile, next year, if the government no longer provides a budget for the Covid-19 vaccination, Bio Farma will set a tariff for the injection of the Indovac vaccine. However, Bio Farma ensures that the vaccination rate will not burden the community. “It is possible that the price of the vaccine could be below Rp. 100,000,” said Honesti.
He also believes that Bio Farma can meet the needs of the Covid-19 vaccination by using the Indovac vaccine. This is because the Bio Farma Group can produce drugs and vaccines as a whole, reaching 3 billion doses in a year.
The independence of the Covid-19 vaccine is considered very important for Bio Farma. This is because the pandemic is not over yet. When the Covid-19 vaccine was first discovered, many big countries with strong finances competed to secure vaccine supplies for themselves.
Furthermore, the presence of this domestically made vaccine can bring benefits to Indonesia. This is because Indonesia cannot always rely on vaccine stocks from abroad. Moreover, Indonesia’s current stock of vaccines has expired.
“Even if the pandemic ends, the Indovac vaccine will still be needed, although maybe its status will be the same as the vaccine for the common cold,” he said.
