As 1.1 Million Doses of AstraZeneca Vaccine Arrived in Indonesia

Tangerang, MINA – Indonesia has received another delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine. As many as 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in finished form arrived in Indonesia on Monday.

The KLM airline aircraft carrying the vaccine flew from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, landing at Soekarno Hatta Airport, Tangerang, Banten, at around 05.50 p.m local time.

“Today, Indonesia received the first shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines totaling 1,113,600 finished vaccines, with a total weight of 4.1 tons consisting of 11,136 cartons,” said Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi in a press statement welcoming the arrival of vaccines, at Soekarno Hatta Airport, Tangerang, Banten.

The total of 1,113,600 vaccines, added Retno, was the initial part of the first batch of vaccines through the multilateral COVAX Facility.

“In the first batch, Indonesia will get 11,704,800 finished vaccines. The delivery of the first batch will be carried out until May 2020 and God willing, according to the plan, the next batches will be followed, “she said.

The arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine is the sixth stage of the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia.

Previously, the first stage of the COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the country on December 6, 2020 in the form of a vaccine so Sinovac produced 1.2 million doses. Then, on December 31, 2020, in the second phase, 1.8 million doses of the vaccine were imported again to become Sinovac production.

Then, on January 12, 2021 or the third stage, 15 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine raw material were imported which were then processed by the state-owned company PT Bio Farma. In the fourth phase, 10 million doses of the raw material for the Sinovac vaccine arrived on February 2, 2021.

Furthermore, on March 2, 2021, in the fifth stage, as many as 10 million raw materials for the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Sinovac arrived again.

The COVAX facility is a multilateral collaboration to ensure that everyone in the world will receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This collaborative scheme was initiated by the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization or WHO, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and UNICEF.

Indonesia through the Indonesian Foreign Minister is one of the co-chairs of the multilateral vaccine cooperation program COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) Engagement Group (EG), which has 92 members. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)