Indonesian Red and White Vaccine for Booster and Children

Jakarta, MINA – Indonesian Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the Red and White Vaccine developed by Universitas Airlangga (Unair) and PT Biotis Pharmaceuticals Indonesia will be used as a booster vaccine for children aged 3-6 years. Currently, the government is accelerating the vaccination program, including for children.

“For the time being, we will see the potential of the Red and White vaccine for booster vaccines and especially for children over 3-6 years old. In the world there are not many vaccines (for children 3-6 years old) as far as I know, only Sinovac and Pfizer. Pfizer is also in clinical trials,” he said while attending the virtual Red and White Vaccine Kick Off clinical trial on Wednesday as quoted from Republika Online.

Budi continued, the Red and White vaccine is also planned to be used for international donated vaccines. One of the destination countries is Africa. The Minister of Health said that he felt that Africa needed attention because the penetration of vaccine distribution in Africa was rather slow.

Budi admitted that President Joko Widodo had agreed to use the Red and White vaccine as Indonesia’s donation to countries abroad. “So it’s not only used locally (in Indonesia) but also internationally,” he said.

Even so, he said, what is needed now is the registration process at the World Health Organization (WHO) for clinical trials and boosters. Furthermore, the registration is also required to be used as a donation to African countries.

“We have to make sure our vaccine class is at the international level, but also publish as much international research on vaccines as possible so that the world’s researchers can see it,” he said.

The Coordinator of Covid-19 Research Products, Universitas Airlangga Surabaya, Prof. Ni Nyoman Tri Puspaningsih, is optimistic that the Red and White vaccine can ward off the Omicron variant of the corona virus.

“We are very optimistic that the Red and White vaccine can ward off omicron. Because from the pre-clinical results that the Unair research team has carried out on macaque animals, the vaccine efficacy rate shows good results, namely, 98 percent,” he said.

The Red and White vaccine has been tested up to the delta variant, the variant which is said to have the most severe level of spread compared to other variants. He revealed that during the case of the delta variant of Covid-19, the efficacy of other types of vaccines had decreased by 10 percent to 15 percent, but was still at 65 percent to 75 percent.

“The analogy is if other (vaccines) have decreased (efficacy) in the delta but are still (considered good) their efficacy. Moreover, we have already tested the challenge in the delta variant,” he said.

He is optimistic that if the delta can be overcome with this vaccine, God willing, the omicron variant will. “Because this (Omicron) spreads quickly, but the severity is not as severe as the delta,” he said. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)