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(Recasts, adds vox pops on vaccine hesitancy)
By Stanley Widianto and Yuddy Cahya Budiman
JAKARTA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Indonesia is poised to secure
coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the health
minister said on Tuesday, as it awaits authorisation to begin
its inoculation programme with a third drug, by China's Sinovac.
Budi Gunadi Sadikin said a 50-million-dose deal with
AstraZeneca would be finalised before the end of the
year, and one of the same size with Pfizer in the first
week of January.
The first shots for both those drugs, which have gained
regulatory approval in many western countries, are not scheduled
to arrive for months, the minister told his first news
conference.
So Indonesia plans to start vaccinations with the Sinovac
treatment, of which it secured 1.2 million doses this
month and expects 1.8 million more in January, once it gains
emergency use clearance.
Interim results from its phase III trial are expected to be
delivered to Indonesia's Food and Drug Agency next month.
Budi said the country's 1.3 million front-line health
workers would get priority in the first wave of vaccinations
between January and April. "They are the most important group of
people in our battle against the pandemic," he told a news
conference.
The world's fourth most populous country has had over
727,000 confirmed COVID cases and 21,700 deaths, among Asia's
highest tallies.
Public servants will be next in line for shots, with those
in infection "red-zones" aged between 18 and 59 prioritised in a
second round of vaccinations.
Indonesia is focusing its programme on that age range rather
than the elderly in an effort to safeguard the working
population.
Bambang Heriyanto, corporate secretary of state-owned
drugmaker Bio Farma, said that strategy would allow Indonesia to
reach herd immunity.
Including Tuesday's announcement, Indonesia has secured 329
million vaccine doses, including about 125 million from Sinovac,
50 million from Novavax and 54 million from global vaccine
programme COVAX.
The AstraZeneca vaccines are expected to arrive in the
second quarter of 2021 and Pfizer's in the third quarter,
according to a slide presentation by Budi.
The companies were not immediately available for comment.
IS IT SAFE? IS IT HALAL?
The vaccine deals met with mixed reactions on the streets of
the capital Jakarta on Tuesday.
"There's lots of diseases with no cure, but there's already
(a) cure for COVID," said 25-year-old radio announcer Cindy
Lauw, "I'm just wary."
Suhaimi, a 55-year-old retiree, said he would await trial
results, and news about whether the vaccine was permitted under
Islam.
A December survey by Indonesian pollster Saiful Mujani
Research and Consulting showed 37% of 1,202 respondents were
willing to be vaccinated, while 40% would consider it and 17%
would refuse.
While acknowledging the essential role of vaccinations,
epidemiologist Pandu Riono warned against over-reliance on them.
"Vaccines are the second step in prevention, the first is
behaviour and surveillance, testing, contact tracing and
isolation," he said.
(Additional reporting by Angie Teo;
Writing by Kate Lamb;
Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel and John Stonestreet)
