TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Director of the Institute for Molecular Biology Eijkman Amin Soebandrio admitted that Indonesia was late in starting development the Covid-19 vaccine domestically.
“We must admit that we started four months late,” Amin said in a discussion on the Trijaya Polemic, Saturday, August 15, 2020.
Amin said China and other countries had immediately moved to develop the Covid-19 vaccine since January 2020 to isolate themselves. The government, said Amin, had just formed a Covid-19 Research and Innovation Consortium consisting of a number of researchers to develop a vaccine last March.
Eijkman was appointed to lead the consortium. “Then April practically just started. So it was 4 months late,” he said.
The Covid-19 vaccine developed domestically is different from the Sinovac vaccine for China. Amin explained that the domestically produced vaccine or the Red and White vaccine uses a recombinant protein platform. Meanwhile, Sinovac uses a complete virus platform that is killed as an antigen.
According to Amin, the consortium was given 1 year to develop vaccine seeds on a lab scale. Then one year later a clinical trial was conducted.
Although it looks quite long, Amin said that the development of the domestic vaccine has actually shortened the process. In fact, WHO predicts a minimum of 18 months to get the vaccine, one of them Red and White vaccine.
“If you look at the past vaccine experience, there is a lab scale that is almost 10 years old. We try to do it as soon as possible until 1 year is over,” he said.
FRISKI RIANA
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