Jokowi Forms National Team To Accelerate COVID-19 Vaccine Development

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) signed Presidential Decree No. 18/2020 concerning the National Team for the Acceleration of COVID-19 Vaccine Development.

Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Wiku Adisasmito said the team was formed because the government wanted to accelerate vaccine development and achieve national resilience in the health sector, especially vaccines.

"So the team to accelerate vaccine development has a goal because the government wants to accelerate vaccine development itself," said Wiku in a press conference broadcast online on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Tuesday, September 8.

According to Wiku, this team also functions to increase the synergy of research related to the COVID-19 vaccine. This is because many research institutes in Indonesia are conducting research to find an antidote to this virus and try to be as fast as possible.

In addition, the team, whose Presidential Decree was signed by President Jokowi on September 3, is expected to be able to carry out the preparation and utilization, as well as increase the capacity of vaccines in Indonesia.

Regarding the concern that this team will overlap with the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery, Wiku believes this will not happen. Moreover, people on the team also belong to the existing committee structure.

"In the institutional structure of this Presidential Decree, there is a steering team in which the chairperson is the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and the members are the Coordinating Minister for PMK and the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs. This is included in the committee structure so the coordination will be carried out immediately," he said.

"Likewise with the person in charge, if we look at the person in charge of the team, the chairman is the Minister of Research and Technology with the Deputy Chairperson of the Minister of Health and the Deputy Chair II is the Minister of BUMN," he added.

Not to mention, the member structure also comes from a number of ministers and heads of institutions such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Industry, Minister of Education, Head of the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) and many more. Thus, it is considered that this will not overlap in the existing structure but coordination can be increasingly focused on vaccines.

With the target of procuring vaccines in 2021, Wiku then said that this team would work together with the COVID-19 and PEN Management Committee and the COVID-19 Handling Task Force.

Regarding the team's future work plan, he said that after the Presidential Decree was given, all existing components would immediately work.

"As soon as the Presidential Decree is issued, all components will work immediately and really synergize what is there and the time is not long. So we must be able to finish it by the end of 2021," he concluded.