APEC Summit; Jokowi Calls on Global Cooperation to Tackle Covid-19

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian President Joko Widodo or Jokowi during the APEC summit calls on the global solidarity and cooperation between countries to together fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. He also talked about the vaccination gap in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Friday, July 16.

"In this case, the President hopes that the APEC could contribute to closing the global vaccination gap, including through the Covax Facility," said Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi in a press release on Friday night, July 16.

President Jokowi said that the vaccine gap in the world is still big, which can be seen at the small number of the inoculation drive in ASEAN regions that only reached 17.63 percent from the population. In Africa, it only reached 4.3 percent from the total population. Meanwhile in North America and Europe, it reached 77.73 percent and 76.81 percent from the total population, respectively.

He viewed that the epidemiology considerations should always become the base instead of political influence considerations, including in the vaccine issues.

APEC, said Joko Widodo, must boost the global vaccine production. He suggested several strategies, namely diversifying vaccine production to developing countries, eliminating trade barriers related to vaccine raw materials, and then the support towards the TRIPS waiver to handle the pandemic, and a technology transfer of the latest vaccine.

Jokowi also asserted that the economic recovery could not be achieved if the pandemic has yet to end. Therefore, he said, the health recovery must first be prioritized to win the battle against Covid-19.

In the forum, he also mentioned Indonesian policies in the effort to mitigate the pandemic, such as the enforcement of Covid-19 curb policies across Java and Bali and cities where the case is surging. Also, the strengthening of health facilities by building hospitals, procuring the oxygen supplies and medicines, as well as the intensification of national vaccination drive.

"President Jokowi said that currently, Indonesia has administered 55 doses of [Covid-19] vaccines and will continue to fast-track the inoculation rollout. Indonesia has, so far, received 142,973,880 vaccine doses, both in vials or bulk," said Minister Retno Marsudi.

Read: President Jokowi Scraps Self-paid COVID-19 Vaccination Program

Antara