Indonesians eagerly await jabs

Businesses see vaccinations as key to better productivity and economic fillip

A. Ferri Wahyudi Limputra is elated about Indonesia's Mutual Help program against COVID-19 as the country awaits more vaccines from China and elsewhere.

"We in the business community feel happy because we're no longer in the dark about when our workers will get vaccinated," said the chief executive officer of PT Pura Mayungan Group of Jakarta.

"Although we and our workers will still have to keep wearing masks, washing our hands and maintain physical distancing after we are vaccinated, getting inoculated will make us feel a lot more at ease and help us get on with our work."

His company makes electrical power distribution products and is a leading partner of the state electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara.

On Feb 24, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin issued a decree that allows private companies to buy vaccines from the government and then get their workers as well as their relatives vaccinated free of charge.

The country is battling COVID-19 in all of its provinces. Confirmed cases rose by 4,607 within one day to 1,414,741, with the number of deaths rising by 100 to 38,329, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

On March 2 the ministry announced that a variant of COVID-19 which first detected in the United Kingdom had been found in Indonesia.

The Mutual Help program aims to speed up vaccination and designates the China-made Sinopharm vaccine for company workers. The vaccines Novavax and Moderna, supply details of which are still being negotiated, will also be part of the program.

Pura Mayungan was among more than 8,300 companies that had registered by the first week of this month with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to be included in the vaccination drive.

If all things go well, inoculation for workers may start next month. That would require approval from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency and a "holy and halal" certificate from the Indonesian Ulema Council.

More to arrive

Honesti Basyir, president director of the state-owned vaccine maker PT Bio Farma, said on March 9 that 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine would arrive in Indonesia between late March and early April, with another 15 million doses due in June.

Adrianto P. Adhi, the president director of the publicly listed property company PT Summarecon Agung Tbk, said workers needed to be inoculated as soon as possible.

"With the Mutual Help program workers' health can be maintained and they can work more productively, meaning businesses can recover more quickly, helping the Indonesian economy to rebound."

Summarecon, one of Indonesia's largest property companies, has about 4,200 of its workers waiting to be vaccinated.

Indonesia has imported 38 million doses of the vaccine, part of 186 million doses the government has ordered. On March 2, 10 million CoronaVac doses－made by China's pharmaceutical firm Sinovac－arrived in Jakarta, the fifth batch since December.

PT Bio Farma is responsible for the shipment of the products to provincial offices. Distribution from provincial levels down to village health centers falls to local offices of the health ministry, said Iwan Setiawan, head of the state-owned corporate's communications.

No serious side effects of Sinovac vaccines have been reported in the country.

The ministry has provided the elderly and workers in the tourism industry with drive-through services, for the time being only in Jakarta and on the resort island of Bali.

"With the drive-thru services, the elderly will not queue and go far to health facilities to get vaccinated," the Indonesian COVID-19 mitigation task force's spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said.

2021年3月10日，在印度尼西亚雅加达的一个体育馆里，一名印度尼西亚士兵在接受一剂中国科兴生物科技公司的冠状病毒疫苗(新冠肺炎)。[图片/机构]

企业将疫苗接种视为提高生产率和刺激经济的关键

A.费里·瓦胡迪·利姆普特拉对印尼针对新冠肺炎的互助项目感到欢欣鼓舞，因为印尼正在等待来自中国和其他地方的更多疫苗。

“我们商界感到高兴，因为我们不再对员工何时接种疫苗一无所知，”雅加达普拉马永干集团首席执行官说。

“尽管我们和我们的员工在接种疫苗后仍然需要戴口罩、洗手并保持身体距离，但接种疫苗会让我们感到更加轻松，并帮助我们继续工作。”

他的公司生产配电产品，是国家电力公司秘鲁电力公司的主要合作伙伴。

2月24日，卫生部长布迪·古纳迪·萨迪金(Budi Gunadi Sadikin)发布了一项法令，允许私营公司从政府购买疫苗，然后免费为其员工及其亲属接种疫苗。

该国正在所有省份与新冠肺炎作战。卫生部周六表示，确诊病例在一天内增加了4607例，达到1414741例，死亡人数增加了100例，达到38329例。

3月2日，该部宣布，在英国首次发现的新冠肺炎变种已在印尼发现。

互助计划旨在加快疫苗接种，并为公司员工指定中国制造的国药疫苗。诺瓦克斯和莫德纳疫苗也将是该计划的一部分，其供应细节仍在谈判中。

截至本月第一周，已有8300多家公司在印度尼西亚工商会注册，Pura Mayungan是其中之一，这些公司将被纳入疫苗接种运动。

如果一切顺利，下个月可能开始为工人接种疫苗。这将需要食品和药物监督机构的批准和印度尼西亚乌里玛委员会的“神圣和清真”证书。

更多即将到来

国有疫苗制造商PT Bio Farma的总裁兼董事honesti Basyir 3月9日表示，3月底至4月初期间，将有50万剂国药疫苗抵达印度尼西亚，另有1500万剂将于6月份抵达。

公开上市的房地产公司PT summary con Agung Tbk的总裁兼董事阿德里安托·阿迪说，工人们需要尽快接种疫苗。

“通过互助计划，工人的健康可以得到维护，他们可以更有成效地工作，这意味着企业可以更快地恢复，帮助印度尼西亚经济反弹。"

Summarecon是印度尼西亚最大的房地产公司之一，该公司约有4200名员工等待接种疫苗。

印度尼西亚已经进口了3800万剂疫苗，这是政府订购的1.86亿剂疫苗的一部分。3月2日，1000万剂由中国科兴生物制药公司制造的科兴生物制剂抵达雅加达，这是自去年12月以来的第五批。

PT Bio Farma负责将产品运送到省级办事处。国有企业通信部门的负责人伊旺·塞蒂亚万说，从省级到村卫生中心的分配由卫生部的地方办公室负责。

该国没有科兴生物疫苗的严重副作用的报道。

该部为旅游业的老年人和工人提供免下车服务，目前只在雅加达和度假胜地巴厘岛提供。

“有了免下车服务，老年人不会排队，也不会去很远的卫生机构接种疫苗，”印度尼西亚新冠肺炎减灾工作队发言人维库·阿迪萨丝米托说。