COVAX Has Salurkan 1.84 BILLION Doses Of The COVID-19 Vaccine To 92 Countries

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi chaired the COVAX AMC EG meeting online on Wednesday (30/11/2022). (ANTARA/HO-Kemlu RI)

JAKARTA - The mechanism for sharing global vaccines (COVAX) to date has distributed 1.84 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 92 low- and middle-income countries. In a COVAX Advance Market Commitment Engagement Group (AMC EG) meeting led by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi with the Ethiopian Minister of Health and Canada's Minister of International Development, it was stated that 89.6 percent of the total vaccine or 1.65 billion doses were sent to 87 AMC member countries. "The average vaccination coverage for AMC countries reached 52 percent, or up from 28 percent in January 2022," said the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a written statement regarding the meeting which took place online yesterday, quoted from Antara, Thursday, December 1. The COVAX meeting recorded a decline in the death rate from COVID-19 since February 2022 by almost 90 percent, but stressed the need to anticipate the possibility of a new wave of COVID-19 due to the emergence of two new subvariants, namely BQ.1 and XBB. Seth Brekley as CEO of Gavi emphasized that vaccination, including booster injections, is still the best solution to deal with the COVID-19 virus that continues to evolve. In her remarks, Foreign Minister Retno conveyed Indonesia's G20 Presidency's contribution to strengthening the global health architecture, one of which was the establishment of a Pandemic Fund which would support the financing of preparedness of low- and middle-income countries to face the pandemic in the future. " “Indonesia's G20 Presidency provides high priority on strengthening the global health architecture," he said. In addition, the G20 agreed on the importance of cooperation in strengthening health production capacity in developing countries. “In principle, developing countries should be an integral part of the global health supply chain,” said Retno. He also emphasized that even though Indonesia's G20 Presidency has ended, Indonesia's commitment to strengthening the global health architecture remains strong. "“COVAX will continue to be an important part of this commitment, especially to bridge the inequality of COVID-19 vaccination between countries," said Retno. In 2023, COVAX's work will focus on nine priority areas, including continuing vaccination support and booster injections, as well as supporting vaccine research and development. In the future, COVAX support will begin to be adjusted based on the needs and achievements of vaccination targets, as well as the special challenges facing each country, including the humanitarian situation. The virtual COVAX AMC EG meeting was the fourth meeting during 2022, and became the last meeting for Indonesia as one of the chairmen with the COVAX AMC EG.