World News | Indonesia Greenlights Vaccines for 12 and Older
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Indonesia's President Joko Widodo announced Monday that his government will administer COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 12 after the country's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency green-lighted emergency use of the Sinovac vaccine for children.
Jakarta, Jun 28 (AP) Indonesia's President Joko Widodo announced Monday that his government will administer COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 12 after the country's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency green-lighted emergency use of the Sinovac vaccine for children.
Widodo said in a video statement that he was grateful that the agency has issued an emergency use of authorisation for the Sinovac vaccine so that “vaccination for children that age can start immediately.”
He has asked authorities to boost the country's vaccination rollout to two million shots a day by August from the current level of about 1 million a day, as a second wave of infections engulfs Southeast Asia country.
Monday's announcement came a day after health authorities announced the country's largest one-day jump in new coronavirus infections, the second day in a row, as the Health Ministry reported 21,342 new cases and 409 deaths over the past 24 hours.
The latest tally on Monday showed the country's total confirmed cases since the pandemic began at more than 2.1 million, the most in Southeast Asia, including confirmed fatalities to more than 57,100.
Authorities have so far only fully vaccinated 13.1 million of Indonesia's 270 million people and partially vaccinated another 14.2 million. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)