IDNEWSNOW.COM, Jakarta – Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan said the government is preparing another collaboration on COVID-19 vaccines through state-owned pharmaceutical giant Bio Farma with the United States firm Pfizer Inc.
“We had a video call last night with the U.S. Health Secretary,” said Luhut in a CEO Networking event today, November 24, 2020.
The meeting was also attended by SOE Deputy Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin and the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM).
Luhut claimed to have discussed it with the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as a follow up of his previous visit to America. “We spoke for almost 15 minutes regarding vaccines,” he said.
Presently, several vaccine candidates have been developed, including by Pfizer Inc. in cooperation with German biotech firm BioNTech. The development of the phase 3 clinical trial of the Pfizer vaccine candidate was welcomed by several countries.
The New Zealand government reportedly planned to buy 1.5 million doses of the vaccine with the fastest delivery in the first quarter of 2021. Meanwhile, the United States has a contract worth US$1.95 billion for 100 million doses to be distributed at the end of this year.
However, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine which was developed using the messenger ribonucleic acid (RNA) technology requires special storage at temperatures below minus 70 degrees Celsius. This is surely challenging for vaccination in Asian and African countries with high temperatures and inadequate infrastructure.
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BPOM: Indonesia will Run Tests on Pfizer, Sputnik, other Covid Vaccine Candidate
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