Indonesia has been operating to produce its COVID-19 vaccine following year, thanks to growing anxiety that developing nations could have trouble getting access to a future jab, the head of Indonesia's national COVID-19 research staff said Thursday.
"The production capability and ability of biotech businesses in the world is, we understand, limited, and global supply chains also have challenges," Ali Ghufron Mukti, head of the innovation group at Indonesia's research and technology ministry, told a streamed press conference alongside the country's foreign minister.
"Thus, it's essential for Indonesia to develop its own COVID-19 vaccine.
"We're using our theory and we're optimistic in the year 2021 and ancient 2021, this will be finished in the lab," he said, adding state-owned firm Bio Farma could run trials in the second half of next year.
Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has in recent months talked about the need for developing nations to gain access to any upcoming vaccine, amid concern that wealthy countries would attempt to corner a restricted supply.
Such issues increased this week, even if the United States declared it had purchased most of the global supply of Gilead Sciences Inc.'s drug remdesivir, shown to speed up recovery times in COVID-19.
The pandemic has sparked a race to find a vaccine, with more than 100 in growth and around a dozen already being tested in people.
On Thursday, Mukti also summarized efforts underway between local and foreign pharmaecutical companies to mass produce a vaccine in Indonesia. A COVID-19 Vaccine Development Team was tasked with guaranteeing the access to a vaccine nationwide within the next 12 months.
Honesti Basyir, the manager of Bio Farma, told Reuters in late June it was working with Chinese company Sinovac in a vaccine which will enter the third stage of clinical trials in humans this month.
With a population of more than 265 million, Indonesia estimates it would require over 352 million photographs of a two-dose vaccine.