Maria Fatima Bona, Jakarta – The Indonesian government is ramping up mass vaccination against Covid-19, targeting at least 70 percent of the population partially vaccinated before the end of the year, a Health Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday.

In order to achieve the target, medical units from the military and the police were involved to delivered jabs to citizens across all 34 provinces. "We are working to achieve that target," Siti Nadia Tarmizi said.

The vaccination team includes 119,591 vaccinators from the ministry, 29,999 from the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), 11,174 from the police, 5,645 from the military and 5,690 from private hospitals.

Siti said the slow growth of vaccination among elderly citizens remains a major hurdle in achieving the goal.

She said family members should help the government boost vaccination rate among this vulnerable group of the population.

According to the ministry's vaccination dashboard, only 28 percent of the targeted 21.5 million elderly citizens have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.

This particular population group has become government's priority since the vaccination drive began on January 13.

By comparison, the vaccination rate among children between 12 and 17 has reached 12.85 percent in about a month.

In addition, several districts and cities are unable to speed up vaccine distribution due to various problems the central government cannot intervene, she added.

"We need all regional governments to add the pace because every one of them has their own target," Siti said.

At least 84 million Indonesians have been partially vaccinated against Covid-19 as of Friday, representing 40.39 percent of the target population. The total number of fully vaccinated citizens stands at 47.3 million or 22.73 percent.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/indonesia-aims-to-vaccinate-70-pct-of-citizens-by-year-en