Indonesia has temporarily postponed the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines developed by Oxford University in collaboration with a British multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca following reports of blood clots in several European countries, an official said on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the COVID-19 vaccination of the Health Ministry, Siti Nadia Tarmidzi, said that Indonesia is still waiting for results of the World Health Organization's research on side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"We are only temporarily postponing, not canceling the AstraZeneca vaccination. We are being careful," Tarmidzi told a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
On March 8, 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Indonesia through the multilateral COVAX Facility. The Indonesian Food and Drug Administration has issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The government is not worried that this vaccine will expire soon, with the current injection capacity of up to 250,000-300,000 per day. "It means that 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine can be used in just five days," added Tarmidzi.
