Indonesia Receives Almost One Million Doses Of AstraZeneca Vaccine Grant From Japan

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government received 998,400 doses of the AstraZeneca brand of vaccine from the Japanese government. Nearly one million doses of this vaccine arrived at Soekarno Hatta Airport this afternoon.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mahendra Siregar said the arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine was the first batch of a planned two-time delivery of vaccines supported by the Japanese government.

"This collaboration is a tangible result of the intensive communication between the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Retno Marsudi) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, which has been carried out so far," Mahendra said in a virtual press conference broadcast on Youtube by the Presidential Secretariat, Thursday, July 1.

Mahendra explained that Retno and the Japanese Foreign Minister had coordinated intensively since a few weeks ago, including when attending the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Italy.

"As a follow up, on June 29 last, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japanese embassy in Jakarta signed an exchange of notes marking the vaccine collaboration as a joint effort to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic," said Mahendra.

Mahendra continued, the government continues to work hard and carry out aggressive diplomacy to secure the supply of vaccines for the needs of the Indonesian people, amid the increasing trend of COVID-19 transmission.

"We know that this effort is not easy. Given that the supply of vaccines in the world is still limited, while the needs of each country are very large and urgent," he explained.

Meanwhile, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin thanked the Japanese government and people for being willing to share and concretely support efforts to deal with the pandemic in Indonesia.

"I'm just here to say thank you as much as possible to the Japanese ambassador and also to the Japanese government and all Japanese people for their attention and assistance to help deliver the AstraZeneca vaccine," said Budi.

"I believe that this assistance is not motivated by anything other than the close relationship between the two nations," he continued.