Indonesia to give Covid-19 booster shots to health workers next week

The country's Health Ministry will start the vaccination program using the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine next week, targeting 1.47 million health workers across the country, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Indonesia gave its emergency use approval to the Moderna vaccine last Thursday.

"The Moderna vaccine is planned to come this week and it is hoped that starting next week we can start (the vaccination)," Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said at a virtual press conference on Friday evening.

Sadikin went on to say that the third vaccination will only be given to health workers due to the limited amount of vaccines available.

"It is important for us to understand that this third vaccination is only given to health workers. Because they are the ones who encounter very high levels of the virus every day and we must protect them to the utmost so that they can concentrate on their works," he said.

Health workers in Indonesia have received the second doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines. Until July 3, as many as 6,698 nurses were confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus and 339 of them have died, according to the data provided by National Nurses Association (PPNI).

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) said that the number of doctors who have died from coronavirus infections until July 8 is 458 people.

On Friday at a separate virtual press conference, head of the IDI's mitigation team Adib Khumaidi said that the number of deaths of doctors infected with the virus have been increasing drastically in the past two months.

"In May, the number of deaths of doctors increased by seven and it immediately increased in June, 48 doctors. So, it's almost seven times," he said.

Indonesia on Friday recorded 38,124 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours. The total tally is 2.45 million, the country's Health Ministry reported.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19-related death toll added by 871 to 64,631.