Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

The Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, which has been going on since 2020, gave an impact on all areas of life, be it in public health and the economy. However, the invention of the Covid-19 vaccine has given hope to all people in the world, including Indonesia. This situation makes the Covid-19 vaccine a valuable item, most sought after by the world. Thus, logistical management distribution of vaccines needs to be given attention in order to maintain the quality of the vaccine. Therefore, the Field of Logistics and Supply Chain Management Studies (MLRP) of FEB UGM raised the topic "Indonesia's COVID-19 Vaccine Logistics Evaluation" at the second MLRP 2021 Research Exposure webinar on Thursday (23/12), to discuss further the logistics management of Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia.

Yuyun Yuniar, S.Si., MA., a researcher from the pharmaceutical and medical device group, Research and Development Center for Health Resources and Services, the Indonesian Ministry of Health Research and Development Agency, was invited to said event as a speaker to explain the logistics management of Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia and was guided by Drs. Agastya, M.B.A., a lecturer at the Management Department of FEB UGM, as the webinar’s moderator, and Tria Putri Noviasari, M.Sc. as the Master of Ceremonies.

Yuyun explained that the Covid-19 vaccine distribution system in Indonesia starts from biopharmaceuticals who dispenses vaccines to provincial health offices or HUB, which is a third party with adequate storage, who then distributes it to the district- or city-level health offices, which in turn, then provides them to health facilities services, such as hospitals or health centers.

To obtain information on the logistics of Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia, Yuyun collected data in the form of qualitative and quantitative data, as well as data from field observations. She explained that the logistics management of Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia has several limitations. First, the complexity of the data because the data is constantly shifting, making it difficult to determine the cut-off of logistical data. Second, there are various types of vaccines, wherein each vaccine has a different dose and origin, so the data collection for each must be detailed and complete. Third, due to the independence of the data entry system, a lot of blank data can be found and it is difficult to reconfirm because of the large volume of data available. Fourth, there is a contrast in the time taken between data collection through online FGDs and offline data collection.

In the end, she also mentioned that there is actually a sufficient amount of vaccines available in Indonesia, however, the availability of cold chain infrastructure remains to face a problem in several areas, such as the lack of availability of refrigerators and temperature monitoring equipment. Therefore, given these limitations and constraints above, Yuyun recommended several solutions to overcome these problems, such as continuing efforts to involve the community in the vaccination process, then resolving report recording issues and simplifying the types and information systems used, and resolving public NIK data constraints. In addition, in the future, she suggested the need to establish a vaccine program which considers the results of a vaccine’s efficacy and the availability of resources in the Indonesian health department and health service facilities.

Reportage: Zahra Dian