Jakarta (Indonesia Window) – Indonesia received another eight million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in bulk from Chinese vaccine-manufacturing company Sinovac on Monday (May 31).

The arrival of the vaccine at the International Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Banten province, was the 14th shipment, bringing the amount of vaccines currently owned by Indonesia to 75.9 million doses.

The vaccine in bulk will then be sent to Indonesian national vaccine-manufacturing company Bio Farma in Bandung, West Java province, for further processing into ready-to-use vaccine.

The Minister of State-Owned Enterprises and Chairman of the Committee for the COVID-19 mitigation and National Economic Recovery, Erick Thohir, who welcomed the arrival of the vaccine hoped that the amount would be adequate to vaccinate at least 37.5 million people, from the target of 181.5 million Indonesians.

So far, Indonesia has injected 27 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The minister said that Indonesia is one of the countries with the highest vaccination achievement in Southeast Asia, and the government will continue to strive to increase the coverage of the national vaccination program.

He emphasized that vaccination is an important part of efforts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and restore the national economy.

In his press statement, Erick also said that the government continues to cooperate with a number of parties in developing the national-made vaccine called Merah Putih (Red White).

"Now we are collaborating with five universities and two research institutes," he said, adding that the government is also open to cooperating with various parties in efforts to develop home-made vaccines.

Reporting by Indonesia Window