Indonesia will begin to vaccinate children between the ages of 6 and 11 against COVID-19 from Tuesday, the acting Director-General of Disease Prevention and Control of the Health Ministry, Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, said on Monday.
"We expect that [the vaccine rollout] will be kicked off on Tuesday (14/12) in several regions and continue gradually until next year for children aged 6 to 11 years," Rondonuwu said in a written statement as quoted by Indonesian magazine Tempo.
According to the health official, the vaccination campaign will target a total of 26.8 million children.
The first stage of the vaccination campaign will be carried out in cities where the percentage of first dose vaccinations reached 70 per ent. According to the official, that is 8.8 million children residing in 106 cities.
The country will administer the China-made Sinovac vaccine that has been already approved for administration in children in a number elsewhere, such as Colombia, Ecuador and Hong Kong.
Rondonuwu added that vaccination service posts will also be available at schools as well as other education centres and orphanages.
COVID-19 infection rates are currently low in Indonesia with just 163 new cases reported in the past 24 hours and the total number of active cases standing at 5,158. The country is yet to reach high vaccination rates with only 37.6 per cent of the public fully inoculated from the virus.
The country has approved all available COVID-19 vaccines including Russia's Sputnik V. (ANI/Sputnik)
( With inputs from ANI )
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