State officials are embarking on an official trip to Europe this week to secure another supply of COVID-19 vaccines after the government finalized previous deals made with Chinese producers.
Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir left the country with a team on Monday for official visits to London, as well as Bern and Geneva in Switzerland.
“The main objective of this visit is to secure commitments from other sources for a COVID-19 vaccine under a bilateral vaccine cooperation framework,” Retno told a press briefing before her departure.
In August, Retno and Erick went on a similar work trip to China and the United Arab Emirates, where they secured a supply of a potential COVID-19 vaccine in the ballpark of 300 million doses until the end of next year.
Retno did not specify which vaccine producers she and Erick would meet this week.
However, Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartanto earlier said that the government was going to pay for a down payment on vaccines from Britain-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca by the end of this month.
“The government, through the Health Ministry, will procure vaccines from AstraZeneca in a contract for 100 million doses,” Airlangga said in a Sunday webinar held by the Association of the Gadjah Mada University Alumni. “We will pay a 50 percent down payment by the end of this month, or about US$250 million.”
AstraZeneca is developing a COVID-19 vaccine with Oxford University and is among the front runners in the global vaccine race, which according to a Reuters report, could provide early analyses of data from their various large trials over the next two months.
During its European trip, the Indonesian delegation will also meet World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as well as representatives from the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The three entities lead the COVAX facility, a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan that aims to help purchase and fairly distribute a future vaccine.
Indonesia, according to Retno, is one of the countries listed as COVAX 92, which means that it is eligible to provide the vaccine for 20 percent of its population, or 106 million to 107 million additional doses because each person gets two injections.
“Another objective of this visit is to strengthen medium- and long-term cooperation between [Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company] Bio Farma and its partners abroad, including, once again, in a multilateral context,” Retno said.
She added that she was also scheduled to meet with her counterpart in the United Kingdom as well as other high-level officials.
A separate delegation led by Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan went to Yunnan, China, last week to meet the leaders of vaccine producers Sinovac and Cansino, as well as Sinopharm, which is partnering with Abu Dhabi-based healthcare firm G42.
In the meeting, Indonesia and China finalized a purchase deal for the large bulk of the vaccine — known to have entered its final stage of clinical testing on humans — that was previously agreed upon in August.
But experts are cautious about Indonesia pinning its hopes on vaccine development to curb the pandemic, particularly when a strong COVID-19 response is absent.
Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Australia’s Griffith University, said that vaccines alone would not bring a country out of the pandemic.
“There is no indication that vaccines can be a single solution to the COVID-19 pandemic. We still need to combine that with the main strategy, namely testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine, as well as physical distancing,” he said.
However, he pointed out that the vaccine developed by Oxford University was among the most advanced vaccines currently being made, with final results expected by the end of this year. In comparison, Sinovac’s vaccine production is expected to bear results in the first quarter of 2021.
“That is why we need options, not only from China but also from other potential vaccines. Oxford is relatively at the forefront [of vaccine development], followed by China. Other vaccine developers from South Korea and Australia are also quite advanced,” Dicky said.
The government is aiming to vaccinate 160 million people in the coming years. Terawan said his ministry was still working on the details of a vaccination program but asserted that priority would be given to health workers and security forces who were at the forefront of handling COVID-19.
— Ardila Syakriah contributed to this story
