In an event broadcast here on Wednesday, the ministry's director general for pharmaceutical and medical devices, Lucia Rizka Andalusia, stated that Indonesia is pushing healthcare to the next level through employing a plethora of strategies, such as participating in global organizations, multi-center clinical trials, establishing clinical research centers, and launching the Biomedical Genome Science Initiative (BGSI)
"BGSI aims to advance precision medicine by integrating genomic insight into health services. Our goals are to enhance national disease control and surveillance and support the development of high-quality and effective health products. These goals indeed can be strengthened through cooperation," Andalusia noted.
The ministry recognizes that progress and sustainable impact are the result of collaborative partnerships that pool resources, exchange knowledge and expertise, and enable technology transfer, she affirmed.
Hence, Andalusia expressed gratitude for the partnership with the university, which will facilitate further access to quality, safe, and effective health products as well as promote genomic advancement through various activities.
"I understand that in today's event, there will be an officiation of the Joint Research and Development Center on Vaccines and Genomics, and I do hope that this officiation will initiate more and more joint vaccine and genomic research, which is crucial to ensuring widespread access to vaccine and medicine for the population," she affirmed.
Senior expert on international cooperation at Tsinghua University Liu Yinghui noted that Indonesia is an important member of the Belt and Road Policy, so Tsinghua highly values collaboration with Indonesia.
"In particular, the international collaboration is found to support the formation of the teams from both sides and to promote the academic exchange and seminars," Yinghui remarked.
She expected that the collaboration would yield solid, concrete, and productive results that would improve the well-being of the people in both countries and also be good for global public health.
Chair of the Indonesia-China Joint Research Center on Vaccine and Genomics Linqi Zhang stated that in 2020, the Health Ministry and China's Science and Technology Ministry had inked the joint memorandum of understanding.
Since then, he remarked that the two states had worked together to build a vaccine and genomic joint center to tackle the most challenging health problems threatening both countries.
"Today's symposium is critical to move that collaboration a step further to have real in-person communications. With that communication, we could identify the key collaborative area," Zhang noted.
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Reporter: Mecca Yumna Ning Prisie
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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