Page 17 - Kolaborasi dengan OKI, Badan POM Dukung Pengembangan Obat dan Vaksin COVID-19 di Negara-Negara OKI_Neat

vaccination will last requires not only clinical trial results, but also post-use
surveillance after the vaccination program is rolled out next year, said Indonesian
Institute of Sciences (LIPI) biotechnology researcher Wien Kusharyoto.

“No matter what, we still have to monitor, even after the vaccination is rolled out, the
efficacy and the impacts among those already vaccinated. It's too early to say that it
will last six months to two years," he said.

Experts have urged the government not to put potential vaccines on a pedestal,
saying that whether it can truly rely on the vaccines will depend on their eventual
efficacy and safety to be shown in the results of the trials that are still under way, and
the government should rather prepare for the "worst-case scenario".
The efficacy threshold would be 50 percent, though ideally it should be around 70
percent, said independent molecular biologist Ahmad Utomo, adding that past
vaccine development had shown that failures were not uncommon.

Lower than 50 percent, then vaccines would be out of the question, he said. If it
hovered just above it then the government should reconsider whether putting in so
much money into the vaccination program would be as effective as if the money was
to be used on improving public health. This means scaling up tests, enhancing
contact tracing, providing financial assistance to those in isolation and improving
treatment, he said. "The government should look into which of these will be most
cost-effective," Ahmad said.

Both Terawan and Erick have said that the vaccination program could possibly put a
strain on the state budget if it were to be made free for all. Erick has suggested those
who can afford it pay for it themselves, with current estimated costs ranging between
US$25 and $30, as the government expects to cover some 93 million Social Security
Agency (BPJS) beneficiaries in a vaccination program expected to start next year.

But with the race to find vaccines, the trailing economic and political interests, and
the government having secured hundreds of millions of doses, experts have raised
concerns that these will all affect decisions by authorities.

Wien of LIPI expressed the hope the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM)
would remain independent from all sorts of intervention in evaluating clinical trial
results and issuing permits, otherwise public health would be at stake.

"If there are undesired effects [from the vaccines], there won't be trust among the
people; this will put the vaccination program itself at risk and will automatically affect
economic recovery efforts too," he said.

BPOM head Penny Lukito hoped the trials would be successful, pointing to the fact
that phase III human trials would not start if phase I and II trials were a failure.

"The clinical trials we are on now are the phase III trials; this means that the phase I
and II trials involved humans and have succeeded,” she told a press briefing on
Wednesday. “The phase III is not about whether [the vaccine is] a failure or not, but
about gathering more data [on its efficacy and safety].”