Indonesia approves first homegrown Covid-19 vaccine

Jakarta, Indonesia: Indonesia has approved its first locally developed Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, the head of the country's public health agency said Friday, hailing it as a step toward "the nation's independence in access to medicine".

Jakarta has stressed the importance of developing national vaccines since the beginning of the pandemic but it currently relies on China's Sinovac and the Western-made Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA jabs.