Eijkman

Meanwhile, Dutch army doctor Christian Eijkman had developed his own theory about beriberi after experiments with chickens.

For Eijkman, the merger is the end of an era.

However, Herawati Sudoyo, deputy director for fundamental research at the government-funded Eijkman Institute, which specialises in medical molecular biology and biotechnology, said the vaccines’ ability to withstand the mutation had yet to be determined.

The essential nutrient was first identified in the early 1900s by a Dutch physician, Christiaan Eijkman, who noted a similarity between the human disease beriberi and a similarly debilitating syndrome in chickens.

The unsubstantiated claims regarding the necklace drew criticism from health experts in Indonesia, including Herawati Sudoyo, the deputy director of the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology.