Bio Farma to Produce 2nd Batch of COVID-19 Vaccine This Month

COVID-19 vaccine arrives at Bio Farma Headquarter in Bandung. Photo by: Press Bureau of Presidential Secretariat.

State-owned Pharmaceutical Company Bio Farma has announced it will start producing the second batch of COVID-9 vaccine on 13 February.

“For the second batch, we will begin producing it on 13 February and it is expected to be completed on 20 March 2021,” Spokesperson of COVID-19 Vaccination from Bio Farma Bambang Heriyanto said in a press conference at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Tangerang, Tuesday (02/02).

For the record, 10 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine raw material produced by Sinovac arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday (02/02).

Sinovac also provided 1 million doses of overfill in semi-finished form to support the production process that will be carried out by Bio Farma.

“The raw materials we have received today are part of 140 million doses of raw materials imported from Sinovac for 2021 that will be delivered gradually until July 2021,” Bambang said, adding that all raw materials must undergo a series of quality control conducted by Bio Farma laboratory and the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM).

The distribution of the vaccine, he added, must also take into account the Good Distribution Practices (CDOB) along the distribution channel.

“Bio Farma uses an integrated vaccine distribution management system (SMDV) in distributing COVID-19 vaccines to maintain the vaccine quality,” he remarked.

Bambang further said that the packaging for COVID-19 vaccine produced by Bio Farma is different from packaging of Sinovac’s finished product but it is of the same quality. (DND /UN) (RI/EP)