‘Clouds are gathering over Indonesia’s Covid-19 inoculation rollout plan after Brazilian scientists reported this week that the efficacy of China’s CoronaVac vaccine was just barely over 50%. The readout was well below the 78% mark the same Brazilian researchers asserted last week and considerably lower than trials on the Sinovac-produced vaccine conducted in other countries.
‘Indonesia, which has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia at 850,000, has already ordered 125.5 million CoronaVac doses. Its president, Joko Widodo, received a shot of the same vaccine on Wednesday morning in a symbolic start to Indonesia’s national vaccination program. Two days earlier, Indonesia’s food and drug agency became the first regulator in the world to approve use of the Sinovac vaccine, after its own local trials found 65.3% efficacy, above the World Health Organization’s 50% threshold for advised use.’
Read here (Asia Times, Jan 14, 2021)
