Jakarta (Indonesia Window) – The number of Indonesians who have received injections of booster doses reached 47.55 million as of Saturday, according to the country’s COVID-19 Handling Task Force.

Data from the COVID-19 Task Force received here on Saturday showed the number of people who have received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccines was 47,545,860.

In percentage terms, the booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been given to 22.72 percent of the total COVID-19 vaccination target of more than 208 million people.

Meanwhile, the number of recipients of two doses of the vaccines against COVID-19 increased by 33,136 people, to a total of 168,030,935 people or 80.68 percent.

Data from the COVID-19 Task Force also showed that the number of recipients of the first doses increased by 25,369 people, bringing the total number to 200,818,541 people or equivalent to 96.42 percent of the total vaccination target.

The government continues to make calls for immediate injections of the COVID-19 vaccines, given the findings of four cases of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in Bali in May 2022.

The Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants have received the status of Variants under Monitoring (VuM) or variants under supervision, and have triggered a spike in cases in Europe, America and Asia.

The Global Initiative on Sharing ALL Influenza Data (GISAID) report shows there are 6,903 BA.4 subvariant sequences from 58 countries. Most sequencing was found in South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Israel.

Meanwhile, the BA.5 subvariant with 8,687 sequences came from 63 countries. The five countries with the most BA.5 sequencing were the United States, Portugal, Germany, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

According to the report, transmission of BA.4 and BA.5 has the possibility of spreading more rapidly than the previous Omicron, but with less severe symptoms.

Reporting by Indonesia Window