Day: August 2, 2021

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin has assured that vaccinated health workers in Indonesia will be offered a third COVID-19 vaccine, or booster, to strengthen their immune response.

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine will be offered as a booster to health workers, he added.

“We assure that the Moderna vaccine as a booster vaccine will be provided to all health workers. We have distributed the vaccine to all provinces in Indonesia,” he said at an online press conference originating from Jakarta on Monday.

He demanded that Moderna vaccines be made available for all health workers as they are in the frontlines of the fight against the pandemic.

“Health workers should be our priority for vaccine booster because they get to see confirmed positive patients every day,” Sadikin noted.

He also asked the public and all stakeholders to not use the booster vaccine quota of health workers. According to Sadikin, the Moderna vaccines remaining after the quota for health workers is met will be administered to 140 million unvaccinated Indonesians.

“There are only 68 million to 70 million people who have been vaccinated, the remaining 140 million still need access to the first dose of vaccines. Please give the vaccine to them first,” he said.

As per data provided by the COVID-19 task force, more than 47 million people have received the first vaccine dose in the country, while 20 million people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. They represent about 24.5 percent of Indonesia’s total population.

The government is targeting to vaccinate 208 million people by ramping up daily vaccinations to 2 million, starting this month.

A booster vaccine is needed to boost the immune response to the current variant of COVID-19, especially among health workers, officials have said. Data shows that between March 2020 and July 2021, as many as 1,141 health workers have succumbed to the virus.

According to Bio Farma’s research, a vaccine booster needs to ideally be injected six months after the second dose of vaccination.

Indonesia received three million doses of the Moderna vaccine on July 11, 2021 from the United States through the COVAX facility.

Source: Antara News

Balikpapan (ANTARA) – Balikpapan City’s Health Office in East Kalimantan announced on Monday that it has restarted vaccination drives for residents seeking their second dose following the availability of vaccine stocks.

“All public health centers (Puskesmas) will resume their vaccination drive, particularly for those already scheduled to receive their second vaccine dose,” spokesperson for the city’s COVID-19 Handling Committee and head of the Balikpapan Health Office, Dr. Andi Sri Juliarty, said.

The city’s COVID-19 vaccination program is aimed at local neighborhood heads and those taking part in the enforcement of public activity restrictions (PPKM) in their localities, he informed.

The East Kalimantan Provincial Health Office has provided 1,691 vials of COVID-19 vaccines to the city, which are sufficient for administering around 16,910 doses, he said adding that each vial can be used to inoculate ten persons.

The 1,691 vials have been allocated to several posts, with the city’s vaccination program receiving one thousand vials, the military receiving 185 vials, the police receiving 406 vials, and the Municipal Health Office receiving 100 vials.

“Residents who missed their appointment for the second vaccine due to the stocks vacuum can immediately visit the public health centers where they received the first vaccine,” Dr. Juliarty said.

Puskesmas officers will also notify vaccine recipients of the arrival of new vaccine stocks via short message service, he added.

“Except for three thousand new recipients, who will receive their first vaccine at the Beriman Public Hospital in Gunung Malang, all other second vaccines are to be administered at the BSSC Dome building tomorrow (August 3, 2021),” Dr. Juliarty informed. The vaccination drive for the second dose had to be relocated from the Beriman Public Hospital as it has been overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, he explained.

Vaccination drives in Balikpapan faced a delay of several days after the vaccine stocks of the municipal COVID-19 Handling Committee ran out, he said.

Despite this, vaccination drives were hosted by the military and the police as their stocks were separate from that of the COVID-19 handling committee, he added. The vaccination drive for passengers at Balikpapan’s Sepinggan Airport also continued, he said.

According to the Balikpapan Health Office, as many as 136 thousand out of 688 thousand city residents were vaccinated as of the end of July 2021. Vaccination rate in the city currently stands at 21.3 per cent of the total population, it added.

The vaccination drive in Balikpapan commenced on January 29, 2021, with the city’s police chief, Inspector General Herry Rudolf Nahak, becoming the first vaccine recipient.

Source: Antara News

Jakarta (ANTARA) – The Industry Ministry has continued to encourage electronics industry businesses to contribute in the handling of COVID-19.

“We have issued Industry Minister’s Circular Letter Number 3/2021 on industrial operations and mobility permits (IOMKI) amid the enforcement of community activity restrictions (PPKM),” Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said here on Monday.

“This is to maintain production activities while preventing the spread of COVID-19, especially in the industrial sector,” he added.

Only industrial companies and estates that have industrial operations and mobility permits are allowed to continue their activities to meet domestic and export demands, according to Director General of Metal, Machinery, Transportation, and Electronics Industry (ILMATE) at the ministry, Taufiek Bawazier.

“The electronic industry is one of the crucial sectors to speed the recovery of the nation’s economy. Hence, it falls into essential sector and is allowed to operate with 50 percent of its staff,” he added.

Amid the pandemic, there has been a jump in the demand of electronics products to support health facilities, especially air conditioner and fans, the director general said.

One of the manufacturers that supply these products to various health and self-quarantine facilities is PT Panasonic Manufacturing Indonesia that sold the products to Kemayoran Athletes Village and Pondok Gede Hajj Dormitory COVID-19 Emergency Hospital, Pasar Rumput Hospital, flats in Semarang, as well as COVID-19 emergency hospitals in Medan and Padang, vice president of PT Panasonic, Daniel Suhardiman has said.

The company will also supply fans and air conditioners to the Covid-19 modular hospitals in Tanjung Duren, Nagrak Cilincing, and Solo, he added.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Electronics and Telematics Industry at the ministry, Ali Murtopo Simbolon, has said that companies have to report about their complying with their industrial operations and mobility permits every Tuesday and Friday.

“We keep coordinating closely with the electronics manufacturers so they can continue to carry out their activities with strict health protocols. We monitor the incoming reports to avoid any emergence of a COVID-19 industrial cluster transmission,” he added.

Source: Antara News

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Indonesian Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated that the peak in the number of COVID-19 cases in several regions in the islands of Java and Bali has passed.

“This is the moment that we should be grateful despite all the strengths and weaknesses that we have,” he told a virtual press conference that ANTARA joined from Jakarta on Monday.

Based on the graphics of reported daily cases, the number of COVID-19 cases in Java and Bali reached its peak on July 15, 2021 with 43.925 cases, but it has  declined by 60 percent.

He expressed his gratitude to health workers, regional heads, the army, and the police for their patience and performance during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know that this is not one hundred percent done, and we need to be careful in accordance with the President’s directives,” the minister noted.

Sadikin explained that the primary strategy to prevent COVID-19 in the world is by not allowing the number of patients who need treatment in hospitals outnumbers the capacity of the available facilities. He argued that during a pandemic, nothing is over quickly. Instead, it may even take longer time.

Since the coronavirus hit Indonesia last year, the government has set out four strategies to reduce infection rate by referring to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) guidelines.

The strategies — abiding by the health protocol by wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and washing hands (3M), testing, tracing, and treatment (3T), vaccinations, as well as patient treatment — must simultaneously be carried out.

Sadikin went on to say that almost 70 percent of Indonesia’s COVID-19 cases were found in Java-Bali but thanks to the enforcement of the emergency and level 4 public activity restrictions since July 3, the number of cases started to decline.

Source: Antara News