By Stanley Widianto and Tabita Diela
JAKARTA (Reuters) – As Indonesia prepares to start mass vaccinations against COVID-19, its plan to prioritize working-age adults over the elderly, with the aim of achieving herd immunity quickly and reviving the economy, will be closely watched by other countries.
Several countries, such as the United States and Britain, which have already started vaccination, are prioritizing the elderly most vulnerable to respiratory diseases.
The following are the experts’ views on the merits and risks of the Indonesian approach, according to which adults of working age will be vaccinated after health workers and frontline civil servants.
WHY 18-59 YEARS OLD FIRST?
Indonesia, which plans to start mass inoculations with a vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech, says it still does not have enough data on the vaccine’s effectiveness in the elderly, as clinical trials underway in the country involve people aged 18 to 59 years.
“We are not going against the trend,” said Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a senior official in the health ministry, adding that officials would await recommendations from the country’s drug regulators to decide on vaccination plans for the elderly.
While Britain and the United States began immunizing with an injection developed by Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech that has shown to work well for people of all ages, Indonesia has initial access only to the Sinovac vaccine.
The Southeast Asian country has an agreement to receive 125.5 million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine from Sinovac, and a first batch of 3 million doses is already in the country.
Shipments of the Pfizer vaccine to the country are expected to start in the third quarter, while a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford will begin shipping in the second quarter.
“I don’t think anyone can be too dogmatic about what the right approach is,” said Peter Collignon, professor of infectious diseases at Australian National University, adding that Indonesia’s strategy may slow the spread of the disease, although it may not affect mortality rates. .
“Indonesia doing differently from the USA and Europe is valuable, because it will tell us (if) you will see a more dramatic effect in Indonesia than in Europe or the USA, because of the strategy they are doing, but I don’t think anyone knows the answer. “
Professor Dale Fisher of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore said he understood the logic of Indonesia’s approach.
“Young working adults are generally more active, more social and travel more, so this strategy should decrease transmission in the community faster than vaccinating older individuals,” he said.
“Of course, older people are more at risk of serious illness and death, so vaccinating them has an alternative justification. I see merit in both strategies.”
WILL IT HELP ACHIEVE FLOCK IMMUNITY QUICKLY?
By vaccinating more socially mobile and economically active groups first, Indonesian government officials hope the government can quickly achieve collective immunity.
Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia’s health minister, said the country needs to vaccinate 181.5 million people, or about 67% of its population, to achieve herd immunity, and requires almost 427 million doses of vaccines, assuming a double dose regimen and 15% waste rate.
Some experts are skeptical about how to achieve collective immunity, as more research needs to be done to determine whether vaccinated people can transmit the virus or not.
“There may be a risk of people still able to spread the disease to others,” said Hasbullah Thabrany, head of the Indonesian Economic Health Association.
WILL HELP ECONOMIC RECOVERY?
Economists have argued that a successful vaccination program, covering about 100 million people, will help boost the economy as they are more likely to resume economic activities, such as spending and production.
Faisal Rachman, an economist at Banco Mandiri, said that the 18-59 age group has greater consumption needs than other groups.
“They could accelerate the economic recovery more quickly because household consumption contributes more than 50% to Indonesia’s economy,” he said, warning that the increase in COVID-19 cases in the country could also decrease people’s confidence.
The pandemic pushed Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, into its first recession in more than two decades last year, with the government estimating a contraction of up to 2.2%.
(This story corrects Rahman’s name to Rachman in paragraph 19)
(Additional reporting by Gayatri Suroyo; editing by Miyoung Kim and Raju Gopalakrishnan)