Indonesia Starts Destroying Expired COVID-19 Vaccines

TheIndonesia.id - The Ministry of Health will destroy expired COVID-19 vaccines in several areas in an effort to accelerate the delivery of new vaccine batches. The minister emphasized the importance of immediately destroying the expired COVID-19 vaccine, so it will not hamper future vaccine batches in the storage area.

"Most of the vaccine grants and some of our purchased vaccines have expired, and they were still stored in refrigerators in provinces. Hence, if we want to send a new vaccine batch, it will be hampered," Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated at a press conference in Jakarta, Tuesday, May 31, 2022.

He affirmed that permission had been received from President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) for destroying the expired COVID-19 vaccine. "The president asked that the extermination be conducted in accordance with applicable regulations and accompanied by the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP), the Attorney General, and other law enforcement officers. The procedures were also in accordance with the applicable regulations," Sadikin stated.

The minister noted that two factors caused COVID-19 vaccines to expire, with the first being, donated vaccines, with a short expiry date. "Donated vaccines are generally old stock vaccines in developed countries. When vaccines are available, they buy them first. Then, some leftover vaccines were sent to us. Thus, almost all of the donated vaccines have a short expiry date," he explained.

He added that the average expiry date for COVID-19 vaccines from donations was relatively short, between one to three months.

"However, at the start of the year, we felt the need to receive more vaccines, and they were free. The vaccine was also good, so then we accepted it," he noted.

The second factor was a slowdown or decrease in the vaccination rate in the country after COVID-19 vaccination in Indonesia had reached over 70 percent of the total population. "The same phenomenon also occurred in developed countries. When we reach 70 percent of the vaccination coverage, then the trend tends to become stagnant," Sadikin remarked.

Based on data from the Ministry of Health as of May 31, 2022, at 12:00 local time, the recipients of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine reached 200.26 million people, or 96.16 percent of the total 208,265,720 residents, who were targeted for COVID-19 vaccination.

Meanwhile, members of the population that had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine increased to 167.42 million, or 80.39 percent of the target. For the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine or a booster vaccine, some 45.67 million people had been vaccinated, or 21.93 percent of the target.