Mutual Cooperation Scheme to Speed Up COVID-19 Vaccination: Coordinating Minister

President Jokowi inspects the implementation of mutual cooperation vaccination program at PT Unilever Indonesia, Cikarang, West Java, Tuesday (18/05). (Photo by: BPMI of Presidential Secretariat/Lukas)

In a bid to speed up COVID-19 vaccination and achieve herd immunity, the Government has launched the mutual cooperation (gotong royong) vaccination program by involving corporations to cover vaccination cost for employees.

“The mutual cooperation vaccine program aims to speed up achieving herd immunity. The program is a manifestation of burden sharing between corporations and the Government,” Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said as quoted by the Coordinating Ministry’s webpage, Thursday (20/05).

Airlangga, who also helms the Committee for COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery, said that the vaccination program will accelerate vaccination for productive age groups.

For the record, data from the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) shows that 22,750 corporations have registered for the mutual cooperation vaccination program with approximately 10 million participants.

The initial stage of the vaccination program covers Greater Jakarta area with approximately 220,000 participants from various industrial sectors.

The total number of Sinopharm vaccine doses that have arrived for the vaccination program is 500,000 doses, 420,000 of which have been distributed.

The Government has secured commitment for 7.5 million vaccine doses with potential for additional supply up to 15 million doses.

The registration mechanism for the mutual cooperation vaccination program is under the control of Ministry of Health and the implementation will be carried out by the Kadin and state pharmaceutical company Bio Farma.

Airlangga also pointed that the Government has secured commitment for COVID-19 vaccine supply from Sinovac (147 million doses until November this year), Novavax (50 million doses in the second semester this year), COVAX Gavi (54 million doses until December this year) and AstraZeneca (20 million doses until December this year).

“Fifty million doses of Pfizer Vaccine are also slated to be available in the second semester. There are also 60 million additional doses from COVAX Gavi and 15 million doses from Sinopharm for the Mutual Cooperation program,” Airlanggga said.

The Government, he added, set the target that 70 million people will have been vaccinated by the end of August-September period this year, while the accumulative total procurement of vaccine will reach 140 million in the period of July-August this year. (PR of Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs/AIT/UN) (RI/EP)