COVID-19 shots to the people: Indonesia city revs up vaccine buses
14 June, 2021
An Indonesian city is bringing COVID-19 vaccines to its people with an evergrowing fleet of inoculation buses, as the country faces a spike in infections after a significant religious festival.
Authorities in Pekanbaru on the island of Sumatra have doubled to 10 the quantity of buses in its vaccination programme since launching it on Jun 1, carrying out a favourable response from the public, who are pleased with the convenience.
Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 270 million people, is bracing for a peak in coronavirus infections following the Eid al-Fitr festival last month that saw millions happen to be visit friends and family.
"I hope this programme could keep continuing until all of the persons in this town get fully vaccinated," said Delvi, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, after getting a vaccine shot on the bus.
"It really is closer and easier compared to the vaccination centre."
The federal government of Pekanbaru, the administrative centre of Riau province, says the buses have administered 12,000 doses of China's Sinovac vaccine and so are giving a lot more than 1,000 shots a day. Authorities say they intend to improve the number of buses but have not said by how many.
Regardless of the interest in the bus project, authorities say they need to fight misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations.
"We saw some people had doubts about getting vaccinated as a result of fake news," said district chief Said Ahmad Zamzami.
"We inform them not to believe that which vaccine is good for our immune system. Folks are also more convinced now because myself, as the top of the district, also participated," he stated before getting his shot.
Indonesia plans to vaccinate 181.5 million persons by next year. Only 11.57 million Indonesians have obtained two shots of the vaccines used there: Sinovac, China's Sinopharm, or the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.
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