Indonesia seeks to launch home-grown Covid-19 vaccine in third quarter

A healthcare worker inoculates a woman with a dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the Covid-19 during a mass vaccination at a shopping mall in Jakarta. Indonesia has aimed to develop and manufacture its own vaccines domestically since the start of the pandemic. - Reuters

JAKARTA, Feb 20 (Jakarta Post/ANN): Indonesia will seek to launch a home-grown Covid-19 vaccine in August, with the first phase of clinical trials for the Merah Putih vaccine now under way.

Analysts said it was an important development for Indonesia, where more than 65 per cent of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, if a vaccine can be produced domestically from a trusted source.