They even asked whether Indonesia has its own vaccine factory. I answered no, we don't have our own vaccine factory, but we lobbied all manufacturers to get as many vaccines as possibleJakarta (ANTARA) - A number of world health figures praised Indonesia's performance in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic at the G20 Health Ministers Meeting in Rome, Italy, on September 5-6, 2021, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said.
"I said that Indonesia has now vaccinated 69 million people. And the first one who was surprised was the Italian Health Minister, as they have 57 million inhabitants," said Sadikin while attending a virtual webinar on the 'Role of Respiratory Health for 76 Years of Indonesia's Independence', which was streamed by Jakarta's Persahabatan Hospital on YouTube on Thursday.
The G20 Health Ministers Meeting was attended by a number of figures from the health sector, including Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), CEO of Global Fund, and health ministers of several countries, Sadikin informed.
At the forum, Sadikin said that Indonesia had followed Germany's achievement in the number of people who had been vaccinated against COVID-19.
"They even asked whether Indonesia has its own vaccine factory. I answered no, we don't have our own vaccine factory, but we lobbied all manufacturers to get as many vaccines as possible," he added.
He then expressed his gratitude to a number of health ministers from several countries in Europe and America for their vaccine donations to Indonesia, which totaled more than 40 million doses.
The minister said that vaccinations in Indonesia have currently reached an average of 1.3 million to 1.4 million doses per day as against the target of 2 million doses per day, as requested by President Joko Widodo.
"Therefore, we are now in sixth place globally, after China, India, America, Brazil, Japan, both based on the number of people injected and the number of injections," he disclosed.
He said a number of countries participating in the meeting also praised the decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia by around 92 percent from the peak figure on July 15, 2021.
"Other countries praised this decline as something extraordinary. Then I said that this achievement was thanks to the hard work of all parties," Sadikin remarked.
However, the minister noted during the event that SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, and all its new variants are viruses that are difficult to predict. Even some countries that have vaccinated a large number of their population such as the United States and Japan, could record a spike in cases again, he said.
"The number of cases is higher than before. I also think the United States has more than 150 thousand new cases per day. Meanwhile, (infections in) Japan have also reached five times higher than before," he said.
Sadikin said that the meeting also discussed the country's ability to observe virus mutations through whole genome sequencing (WGS).
"We've done WGS very well. We used to do 140 WGS in nine months. Now, we are probably doing 1,500-1,700 WGS in a month, with a much better strategy," he informed.
The minister also said that Indonesia is very serious about implementing the health protocols and the 3Ts (testing, tracing, and treatment). The efforts have increased to eight times compared to December 2020, he noted.
"I remember the initial testing that reached 20 thousand to 30 thousand samples in one day, which probably involved 20 thousand people. Now the number of testing has reached 220 thousand – 250 thousand per day, involving around 130 thousand to 150 thousand people per day," said the minister.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Katriana
Editor: Sri Haryati
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
