RI Will Import 50 Million Doses of Candidate Covid-19 Vaccines from China

KOMPAS.com – PT Bio Farma (Persero) confirmed to accept bulk or concentrate Ready to Fill (RTF) the Covid-19 vaccine from Sinovac as many as 50 million doses in November 2020 to March 2021.

This assurance was marked by the signing of the Prelimenary Agreement of Purchase and Supply of Bulk Production of Covid-19 Vaccine, which was held on August 20, 2020 in Hainan, China.

Minister BUMN as well as the Chief Executive of the Committee for Handling Covid-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPEN), Erick Thohir, said that in the agreement Bio Farma does not only process and distribute, but also includes an element of technology transfer.

“In this visit we want to ensure the transformation of our health industry, where Bio Farma in collaboration with Sinovac is a collaboration that win-win, that agreed with Sinovac in terms of transfer knowledge, technology transfer, this is what needs to be underlined, “said Erick in a statement quoted from Among, Saturday (22/8/2020).

Also read: Erick Thohir Wants Technology Transfer in Cooperation between Bio Farma and Sinovac

On August 20, 2020, two agreements were signed. First, Indonesia is certain to get additional supplies bulk Covid-19 vaccine until March 2021, additional supply until the end of 2021.

The agreement is to agree on a commitment to supply availability bulk vaccine up to 50 million doses of vaccine from November 2020 to March 2021.

The second document signed by Sinovac and Bio Farma is the MoU on capacity commitment bulk vaccine 2021 where Sinovac will give priority to Bio Farma for supply bulk vaccine until the end of 2021.

There is technology transfer

Erick revealed that the BUMN Ministry did not want Indonesia to be a consumptive country forever. He hopes that in the future Indonesia can be independent, including in matters of corona virus vaccine production.

Also read: Profile of Sinovac, the Chinese Company Sending Corona Vaccines to Indonesia

Erick added, if there will be a transfer of knowledge and technology from this collaboration, then Indonesia’s mission to mass immunize the Covid-19 vaccine in early 2021 can be realized.

“The Foreign Minister and I also emphasized that when Sinovac was found, we made sure that technology transfer was not just buying (imports), and this is what I hope we all can revive,” said Erick.

“In accordance with timeline what the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed earlier, how can mass immunization and Indonesia be able to do it soon next year, “said Erick again.

Meanwhile, Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir, said that Bio Farma is looking forward to sending 10 million doses bulk the first Covid-19 vaccine in November 2020, and in December 2020 there will be 10 million doses bulk next.

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Then, he continued, in January 2021 to March 2021 there will be 10 million bulk doses of Covid-19 vaccine every month, so that the total that Bio Farma will receive by March 2021 is 50 million bulk Covid-19 vaccines.

“Let’s finish our big task to immediately produce vaccines and distribute them to the people of Indonesia,” said Honesti.

He added that the bulk that will be received by Bio Farma in the form of RTF in November 2020 will not be produced immediately, but will be carried out in a series of tests at Bio Farma and a registration process at the POM, until it is finally ready to be produced.

After these processes are completed, Bio Farma will continue the process filling and packaging to be the final product, so that there is a component of Domestic Content Level (TKDN), and technology transfer in the field fill/finish bulk with transfer of testing technology.

Also read: Luhut: Covid-19 Vaccine Trial for 18-59 Years Old

First hand vaccine from China

Previously quoted from Kompas Daily, as many as 2,400 Covid-19 vaccine candidates from Sinovac Biotech Ltd, arrived in Indonesia on 19 July. The vaccine is currently undergoing clinical trials in domestic laboratories.

The arrival of thousands of vaccine candidates is expected to make the production opportunity for the corona virus vaccine in Indonesia possible at the beginning of next year. Clinical trials in Indonesia will be conducted for 6 months.

To fight the Covid-19 pandemic, Sinovac developed the CoronaVac vaccine. In laboratory trials in China, this vaccine is known to create an immune response against corona virus infection in the body. The corona vaccine made by Sinovac is currently in the third phase of testing.

Before a clinical trial is carried out, a number of other steps must be prepared, such as testing in the Bio Farma laboratory. According to the plan, the clinical trial will be conducted at the Clinical Testing Center at the Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, Bandung.

Also read: The Government Opens Opportunities for Covid-19 Vaccine Production Apart from Made in China

The test involved 1,620 research subjects aged 18-59 years with certain criteria. The remaining vaccine candidates will be used for testing in several other laboratories, such as the laboratory at Bio Farma and the National Food and Drug Testing Center.

In the clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate, Bio Farma is a sponsor and cooperates with the Health Research and Development Agency of the Ministry of Health as medical advisor and the implementation of the neutralization antibody titer test.

This state-owned vaccine producer is also working with the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) as the regulator and the medical faculty in vaccine clinical trials.

The vaccine testing process itself has now been injected into 1,620 volunteers. The testing process was carried out in Bandung, West Java.

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(Source: KOMPAS.com/Akhdi Martin Pratama | Editor: Sakina Rakhma Setiawan)

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