Some countries including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have already started giving a booster shot to those inoculated with Chinese vaccines amid concerns that they may not be as effective against new and more transmissible coronavirus variants.

But the challenges facing Southeast Asia are much bigger. Many countries in the region rely heavily on Chinese vaccines due to tight supplies of Western products and have low vaccination rates of less than 10 percent.

They are also battling a record-breaking surge in new cases and deaths, led by the highly contagious Delta variant, while rising infections among medical workers despite being fully immunized with the Sinovac shots have stretched already thin healthcare systems.

"There's a lot of doctors and medical workers who have been vaccinated twice but endured medium and severe symptoms, or even died," Slamet Budiarto, deputy chief of the Indonesian Medical Association, told parliament on Monday.

Indonesia has vaccinated millions of its healthcare workers with the Sinovac shot and thousands of them are now testing positive for COVID-19.

"It is the time for medical workers to get a third booster to protect them from the impact of more vicious and worrying new variants," said Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena, deputy chairman of the House of Representatives’ Commission IX overseeing health affairs at the.

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