JAKARTA, Jan 27 (NNN-ANTARA) – Indonesia registered more than one million confirmed cases of COVID-19, since the first infection was confirmed in Mar last year, amid the current vaccination drive.
COVID-19 cases in the country, rose by 13,094 in the past 24 hours, to 1,012,350, the Health Ministry said.
To date, more than 28,000 people have died and around 820,000 have recovered.
Indonesia posts the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia. The virus has spread to all the country’s 34 provinces, with Jakarta being the hardest hit, and East Java the highest death toll.
Across the country, a massive COVID-19 vaccination programme was launched on Jan 14, with healthcare workers being the first group to received the vaccine.
The mass vaccination began one day after President Joko Widodo took the first shot of a vaccine developed by China’s biopharmaceutical company, Sinovac Biotech, in a move to convince the public of its safety.
The president was reportedly scheduled to receive the second jab today, Jan 27.
Doses of the vaccine have been distributed by Indonesia’s state-run pharmaceutical company, Bio Farma, to all the provinces since early Jan, this year.
The government targeted to deliver 5.8 million doses of the vaccine this month, 10.45 million doses in Feb, again to those regions, and 13.3 million doses in Mar.
The Sinovac vaccine was approved for emergency use by Indonesia’s Food and Drug Control Agency (BPOM), following interim results of its late-stage trials.
As many as 18 million doses of the vaccine, developed by Sinovac, have been delivered to Indonesia.
President Widodo said, the government ordered a total of 426 million doses of vaccines from four pharmaceutical manufacturers in different countries.
He also said that the government has readied 30,000 vaccinators, 10,000 community health centres (locally known as Puskesmas) and 3,000 hospitals, to support the vaccination of at least 181.5 million Indonesian people, which is about 70 percent of the population. The vaccine is free of charge to all Indonesians.
Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said, the vaccination goal would be reached in 15 months.
However, Widodo said, at a virtual conference on Monday, “I have ordered the vaccination to be completed before the end of 2021.”
At present, the government is implementing a new, stricter anti-COVID-19 policy, locally known as PPKM, on the country’s main island of Java and holiday resort island of Bali.
The new public activity restriction requires a workplace to have 75 percent of its staff to work from home, teaching and learning activities to be continued online, shopping centres to open for limited hours, and restaurants to receive customers with no more than 25 percent of their seating capacity.
Among the new measures are, more stringent health protocols for construction work activities, as well as, a 50 percent limit of capacity for places of worship.
The policy started on Jan 11, and will last through Feb 8.– NNN-ANTARA
