JAKARTA – Indonesia has approved its first locally developed Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, the head of the country’s public health agency said Friday, hailing it as a step toward “the nation’s independence in access to medicine”.
Jakarta has stressed the importance of developing national vaccines since the beginning of the pandemic, but it currently relies on China’s Sinovac and the Western-made Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA jabs.
The IndoVac jab, developed by state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma and Texas-based Baylor College of Medicine, can now be used as a primary dose for an unvaccinated or partially vaccinated adult in the world’s fourth most-populous country.
“The development… of a domestic vaccine is a pride for us Indonesians as a foundation and as the first step to achieve the nation’s independence in access to medicine,” Dr Penny Lukito, who leads the national food and drugs agency (BPOM), told reporters.
She said IndoVac has shown an efficacy rate of 92 per cent, while there have been no reports of death linked to it in trials. Reported side effects have been “generally mild”, she added.
A clinical study to use it as a booster jab is underway, Dr Lukito said.
The agency also announced Indonesia has granted emergency use approval for an mRNA vaccine developed in China, becoming the first country to do so.
The vaccine, developed by Walvax Biotechnology, will be produced in Indonesia, said Dr Lukto. It promises an efficacy rate of 71.17 per cent against the Omicron variant.
China has several mRNA candidates in development, but the Walvax vaccine – known as AWcorna – is the only candidate in large late-stage clinical trials.
It was not immediately clear how widely the newly approved shot will be used in Indonesia, where more than 63 per cent of its population is fully vaccinated.
Indonesia also uses mRNA Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, but the AWcorna shot has a longer shelf life, remaining stable at 2 to 8 deg C for at least six months, according to its researchers.
That could make the vaccine ideal for countries with poor logistics in remote areas. Indonesia is an archipelago of thousands of islands.
The homegrown IndoVac jab, meanwhile, has been granted a halal certificate, meaning it can be administered in line with the Islamic faith in Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Indonesia became the epicentre of Asia’s Covid-19 pandemic in July 2021 as the Delta variant swept through the country.
Daily cases declined significantly by the end of 2021, but the spread of Omicron brought confirmed cases back to 30,000 a day.
The country has since seen another sharp fall in case numbers and eliminated quarantine requirements for vaccinated travellers.
In total, South-east Asia’s largest economy has reported over 6.4 million confirmed cases with nearly 160,000 deaths. AFP, REUTERS
