Thailand
Indonesia state pharma delays plan to sell vaccines
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Kimia Farma is delaying a plan to sell Covid-19 vaccines after public backlash against the move.
The company will focus on preparing the programme first, said Ganti Winarno Putro, a spokesman for the company. Kimia Farma was earlier set to market Sinopharm Group Co shots, which were ordered for a private vaccination programme, as early as yesterday. The plan was met with questions on why the vaccines were being sold and why any company was allowed to profit from it.
Indonesia offers free Covid-19 vaccines through a public programme, alongside a private campaign organised by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and bankrolled by the participating companies to get their employees inoculated sooner.
As the public programme was expanded to all adults, many of the shots ordered by the private programme are left unused. These can be offered for sale, said Bambang Heriyanto, a spokesman for PT Bio Farma, parent of Kimia Farma.
“The aim is to expand access to the public to get their first dose of the vaccine, ” Heriyanto said, adding that buying the shots could be an option for people who haven’t been covered by the government programme and who aren’t registered with companies that carry out private vaccinations.
South-East Asia’s largest economy is struggling to contain a resurgence of coronavirus infections driven by the delta variant that has overwhelmed its medical system. While it has been meeting its goal of giving out one million shots each day in July, the 51 million doses administered so far have only covered about a tenth of its population.
Kimia Farma was planning to sell the shots in eight clinics in several cities including Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Bali in the first stage. The company has prepared 5,000 doses for each clinic. ― Bloomberg
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2021/07/13/indonesia-state-pharma-delays-plan-to-sell-vaccines