Newly appointed Indonesian health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said the government is currently finalising deals with US vaccine producer Pfizer and UK-based AstraZeneca to secure enough stockpile to carry out its long-awaited vaccination drive next year.

Once the procurement deals are signed, the former banker said, Indonesia would finally be able to reach the minimum number of vaccine doses required to be able to achieve herd immunity, whereby large sections of the population develop immunity to stop the virus in its tracks.

The announcement was Budi’s first big break since being appointed last week to replace former minister Terawan Agus Putranto, who had led a poor pandemic response that saw the nation still struggle to contain Covid-19.

In the nine months since it first reported cases of the virus, Indonesia has recorded over 727,000 confirmed infections and more than 21,000 deaths, according to the latest official tally by the national Covid-19 task force.

Speaking to the media on December 29, Budi said at least 181 million people out of the nation’s 269 million-strong population would need to be inoculated in order to reach the desired coverage to trigger herd immunity.

Assuming each person requires two jabs of the vaccine, and that 15 per cent in wastage needs to be accounted for as recommended by the World Health Organisation, he said Indonesia needed to secure a total of 426 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

So far, the government has secured 125 million doses from Chinese firm Sinovac and another 130 million from US-based Novavax, with more optional supplies on offer.

Critics have raised concerns that Indonesia is pinning too much hope on Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine, which had its first shipment arrive in the country early this month. Unlike other potential vaccines that have shown promising efficacy results from late stage trials, conclusive data on Sinovac’s product was not yet available.

BioNTech-Pfizer and AstraZeneca have reported over 90 per cent and 70 per cent efficacy for their candidate vaccines, respectively. Meanwhile, Novavax has only begun with its large late stage clinical trial of its vaccine in the US and Mexico, Reuters reported.

THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK