JAKARTA: Indonesia has secured 155.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines and is seeking another 116 million through deals with Pfizer, AstraZeneca and global vaccine programme Covax, government data showed on Thursday.
If the deals are agreed, Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s most populous country with more than 270 million people, would have 271.5 million doses of vaccines, above its target of 246.6 million.
It has already secured 125.5 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd and 30 million from Novavax Inc, according to data presented to parliament by Budi Gunadi Sadikin, chief of an economic recovery taskforce.
It is in talks with Pfizer and AstraZeneca to buy 50 million doses each and expects to get 16 million doses from the Covax global vaccine distribution scheme, which is backed by the World Health Organization.
It also plans to hold talks this week with vaccine developer Moderna, Budi said.
A first batch of 1.2 million doses of Sinovac’s vaccine arrived this week with another 1.8 million due next month, as authorities await emergency authorisation to begin using the vaccine.
A spokesman for Bio Farma, Sinovac’s local partner, said this week that vaccination might start in February, depending on the results of the Phase 3 trials now being conducted.
President Joko Widodo has said health workers, police and military personnel would be first in line when vaccination begins.
Indonesia has had Southeast Asia’s most serious outbreak of the novel coronavirus with nearly 600,000 infections and more than 18,000 deaths.