Indonesia to have capacity to produce 250 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine a year

JAKARTA: Indonesia will have capacity to produce 250 million doses a year of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020 pending trials on humans, a minister said on Tuesday (Aug 4), as the country seeks to halt a wave of infections that has shown no sign of relent.

Indonesia has confirmed 115,056 cases of COVID-19 and 5,388 deaths since its first infections in March. It has been reporting more than 1,000 new cases on most days since the start of June.

State-run pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma will begin phase three of clinical trials in humans this week using a vaccine produced by China's Sinovac. If those are successful, Bio Farma has said would produce the vaccine itself.