JAKARTA, June 19 : Indonesia will receive 50 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine jointly made by Pfizer (PFE.N) and BioNTech (22UAy.DE), with the first batch expected in August, a senior health ministry official said on Saturday.

"Pfizer vaccines will start arriving from August, with shipments of between 7.5 million to 12 million doses per month, ” said Siti Nadia Tarmizi, adding that the supply is the result of a direct government purchase.

The South-East Asia's biggest country is grappling with a fresh increase in coronavirus infections in recent weeks. It recorded its highest daily infection figure on Friday (June 18) since late January, with 12, 990 cases.

The country, with a population of around 270 million people, has recorded nearly 2 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic started and 54, 291 deaths, the highest in Southeast Asia.

It aims to vaccinate 181.5 million people by next year. As of Saturday, 12.2 million people have received two doses of other vaccines.

The Covid-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 12, 906 within one day to 1, 976, 172, with the death toll adding by 248 to 54, 291, the Health Ministry said on Saturday (June 19).

According to the ministry, 7, 016 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 1, 786, 143.

The virus has spread to all the country's 34 provinces.

Specifically, within the past 24 hours, Jakarta recorded 4, 895 new cases, West Java 2, 104, Central Java 1, 877, East Java 693 and Yogyakarta 638.

 - Reuters