IDNEWSNOW.COM, Jakarta – Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that Indonesia will produce domestically molnupiravir, a new antiviral drug for Covid-19 patients, starting April or May this year.
“Some variants of drugs that we definitely need are antiviral drugs such as favipiravir and also molnupiravir. If we can immediately get access to the medicines, that would be very helpful for Covid-19 mitigation,” said Minister Budi in his statement on Friday, Jan. 14.
In order to anticipate the continuation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the minister said that the government had secured 400,000 tablets of molnupiravir through PT Amarox. The pharmacy firm reportedly will also produce homegrown molnupiravir.
Besides molnupiravir, Budi hopes PT Amarox can also produce paxlovid to face possible future pandemics.
According to the minister, it is important for Indonesia to make homegrown Covid-19 drugs. When there was a surge of cases in other countries, Indonesia faced difficulties in importing medicines to the country.
“It is hoped that all crucial products for our nation could be produced in the country. We’ll make sure that there are a lot of pharmacies and medical devices firms in Indonesia, so we won’t be dependent on other countries when future pandemics occur,” said Budi.
Read: Health Ministry Asserts Molnupiravir Not Game Changer of COVID-19 Pandemic
FRISKI RIANA
