JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is pushing for vaccine equality as a concrete step in addressing the global gap over the COVID-19 vaccine.
"We must take concrete steps that in the short term we must encourage this even stronger dose sharing through the covac facility scheme," Jokowi said at the Global Health Summit quoted from youTube presidential secretariat, Saturday, May 22.
"This is a form of solidarity that must be encouraged and multiplied. Especially in overcoming the problem of supply hurdles," he continued.
Meanwhile, in the medium and long term, according to Jokowi, the step that needs to be done is to increase or multiply the production of COVID-19 vaccine to meet global needs.
"In the medium and long term we must double vaccine production to meet global needs and build health resilience. Therefore, it is necessary to increase production capacity collectively through technology transfer and investment," he explained.
He also wants G20 member countries to provide support to ensure all countries can access the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Therefore G20 member states should provide support for increased production and equal access to vaccines for all countries," he said.
Jokowi also assessed the supply of vaccines for low-income countries and developing countries is still not maximized. While rich countries already receive so many doses of vaccines.
"At a time when some countries have begun vaccinating low-risk groups of children and men of age, only 0.3 percent of vaccine supplies are for low-income countries. That gap is particularly real, when 83 percent of global vaccine doses are already received by rich countries. While developing countries only accept 17 percent to 47 percent of the world's population," he said.
Jokowi said he was worried that if the vaccine gap problem is not resolved then the completion of the COVID-19 pandemic will be longer.
"If the issue of vaccine production and distribution capacity is not addressed immediately, I fear that the longer we can resolve this pandemic," he said.
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