Red tape hinders Indonesia’s vaccination drive, even as Covid-19 cases surge

Numerous reports of Indonesians running up against red tape in their bid to get vaccinated have surfaced, despite a ramped up inoculation drive

Analysts say unequal access to vaccines risks prolonging the pandemic in Indonesia, which has seen daily infections surpass 40,000 in recent days

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People wearing face masks queue to receive a dose of China's Sinovac vaccine during a mass vaccination programme at a school building in Jakarta on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 1:00pm, 31 Jul 2021Updated: 1:00pm, 31 Jul 2021

When Indonesian national Maria Caritas went to the city of Surabaya two weeks ago to get her first shot of Covid-19 vaccine, she was turned away.

Staff at the vaccination centre told the 21-year-old fresh university graduate that she needed a “letter of domicile” from the chief of her neighbourhood in Surabaya, as her electronic identity card, or e-KTP, had been issued in Malang, where she lived more than a decade ago. Non-Surabaya residents could not be jabbed without the letter as “the vaccines were bought with the city government’s money”, she was told. Caritas currently lives with her parents in Sidoarjo, about 40 minutes away.

The requirement left Caritas bewildered given that Indonesia’s government has been promoting its mass vaccination campaign – that aims to inoculate 70 per cent of people by December – as a way for Southeast Asia’s largest economy to properly reopen. Only about 7 per cent of the country’s 270 million population have been fully vaccinated so far, according to the Health Ministry.

A health worker administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Jakarta on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

Indonesia has secured more than 173 million vaccine doses, bought with the state budget, with the vast majority – 126.5 million – coming from China’s Sinovac.

“I spent more than an hour on the road and then an hour in the queue and still I was denied the jab. If I can only get the jab in Malang, I will have to wait until the current [partial lockdown] is over,” Caritas said, referring to movement curbs in place across the country that were set to expire at the end of the week.