As the government seeks the best way to introduce the national COVID-19 vaccination program as soon as possible, an expert has reminded the authorities to plan carefully for a successful campaign. to do.
Indonesia plans to run its vaccination program early next year. The government has ordered about 143 million doses of vaccine from Sinovac Biotech in China in various forms, from ready – to – administer doses to vaccine bulbs, with 1.2 million doses of the vaccine coming to the country earlier this month.
But the Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) has not yet approved the circulation of the Sinovac vaccine, saying it would extend the testing phase of the tests for another three months to determine the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccine.
“Pandemics can become endemic for so long [a country] able to prepare the vaccination program well to control the disease, ”said epidemiologist Dicky Budiman as quoted by kompas.com on 19 December.
However, he said that launching a vaccination campaign may not be an easy task as a number of factors could hinder its success.
The first, Dicky went on to say, has the potential for another pandemic in the future. An unknown virus that lives inside the body may reactivate in the future, for example.
“In addition, animals could contract COVID-19 from humans and spread it to other animals and humans as well. “
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Dicky also reminded the government to prepare a preventive measure against anti-vaxxers that would tend to generate false statements to discourage the public from supporting the vaccination program. A strong communications strategy, he said, was highly recommended by the expectations of such organizations.
Moreover, the public is still taking the pandemic lightly due to hoaxes and misinformation that has been circulating widely on the internet. He believes this situation would lead to poor public confidence, which could threaten the success of the vaccination program.
“[Such false claims] it would make it harder for some of our people to get vaccinated, ”he said.
Nevertheless, Dicky stressed that the COVID-19 would not stop immediately when the government issued the vaccines, especially since Indonesia was still recording more than 6,000 new cases every day. He suspected that if the search process were kept right, the number of new daily cases would have reached 20,000, he said.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo previously said on December 16 that the COVID-19 vaccine would be available at no cost to the public, after criticism against the government’s plans to vaccinate just a third of the population. targeted funding.
To date, Jokowi has not provided further details regarding the program’s timeline, as well as when the vaccines would be released to the public. (dpk)
Editor’s note: This article is part of a public campaign by COVID-19 action group to raise awareness of pandemic.