While issuing the "2024 Annual Press Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs" at Merdeka Building, Bandung, West Java, she noted that 26 percent of the vaccine doses were grants obtained through international cooperation.
"The years of 2020–2022 were challenging years for the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indonesia's diplomacy has been at the forefront of securing more than 516 million vaccine doses for domestic needs," she said.
She added that Indonesia was lauded by the World Health Organization (WHO) for its COVID-19 handling. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Indonesia was one of the best countries in terms of pandemic handling.
According to Marsudi, Indonesia has continued to make efforts to ensure equitable vaccine access for developing countries, especially since its selection as co-chair of the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) Engagement Group in 2021.
The group was formed to serve as a bridge between countries that need vaccine assistance and related donors and partners. It aims to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for developing countries, which may face difficulty obtaining them.
The minister highlighted that the COVAX facility has distributed 1.97 billion vaccine doses to 146 countries so far.
Furthermore, she said, Indonesia's health diplomacy in the past nine years has supported the strengthening of health resilience through a number of concrete initiatives.
Those initiatives include the launch of a locally made COVID-19 vaccine, IndoVac, through cooperation between state-owned pharmaceutical holding Bio Farma and Baylor College of Medicine of the United States and the strengthening of the ASEAN health mechanism.
The initiatives also include the launch of the Pandemic Fund during Indonesia's G20 Presidency, the initiation of the Pandemic Treaty to bolster global health mechanisms, as well as Indonesia's selection by the WHO as one of the hubs for mRNA vaccine production in the region.
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Translator: Shofi Ayudiana, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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