There’s A Discrepancy In Global Vaccine, Domestic Vaccines Must Be Supported

Illustration (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Vice Chairman of the House of Representatives Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar encouraged all stakeholders to work together to increase the chances of producing COVID-19 vaccines from within the country. Seeing the COVID-19 vaccine distribution gap between developed and developing countries is increasingly worrying.

According to him, all related parties should not put forward sectoral egos to see opportunities for the development of domestic vaccine production, such as the Merah Putih vaccine or Nusantara vaccine.

"The smallest possible opportunities for domestic vaccine production should be taken, given the gap in vaccine distribution between developed and developing countries", Muhaimin said On Saturday, May 22.

Aimin assessed that the world vaccine distribution gap will complicate the position of developing countries including Indonesia. Because, developing countries will scramble to get vaccine rations for their citizens.

"Limited access to vaccines for developing countries will complicate efforts to establish communal immunity (herd immunity). If this condition occurs then efforts to control or end the impact of the pandemic will be more difficult”, said the chairman of the PKB Party.

Chairman of the COVID-19 Pandemic Disaster Control Team of the House of Representatives said the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the health, economic, social, and cultural fields is extraordinary.

Until now, he said, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 reached tens of thousands of people. In fact, thousands of trillions of state budgets have been disbursed to mitigate the negative impact of pandemics in those sectors.

"Currently the only hope for the pandemic to end is the creation of herd immunity through vaccination. The problem is, access to world vaccine production is not fair where there is dominance from developed countries that have strong resources", he said.

Therefore, Aimin urged that all parties encourage the availability of domestic production vaccines such as the Merah Putih vaccine and the Nusantara vaccine.

Although some time ago, the Nusantara vaccine reaped polemic after the National Agency Food and Drug Control (BPOM) stopped its development because it did not meet clinical rules. And among experts there is still a debate about the effectiveness of vaccines by the former Ministry of Health Terawan Putranto.

"But for us whatever the debate is, it should not hinder the process of invention or the discovery of potential production of vaccines in the country that can be quickly produced and safe for the community", he said.

Previously, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) also encouraged the equalization of vaccines 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 presidential secretariat’s YouTube channel, 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.

The president also expressed concern over the world's COVID-19 vaccine distribution gap. Currently almost 83 percent of all world COVID-19 vaccine production is distributed to developed countries.

While developing countries only get an allocation of the remaining 17 percent. Whereas vaccine needs in developing countries reach 47 percent of the world's vaccine production.