JAKARTA - The government held a high-level forum as an effort to strengthen the resilience and independence of the drug, vaccine, and diagnostic ecosystems at the national and Southeast Asian levels as a preparedness for the pandemic if it happens again.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that as a country with a population of around 280 million, there needs to be a strong health ecosystem so that Indonesia can survive during the lockdown during the pandemic. In addition, the same health resilience needs to be shared with neighboring countries with large populations, such as Malaysia and Thailand so that they can save their citizens during such times.
"So this technology does not have to be monopolized, especially in the field of health, it should be shared. Because they have the right to live and if a pandemic occurs, each country will want to save its people first compared to others," said Budi after the High-Level Forum Building Regional and Global Health Resilience in ASEAN: Vaccine Manufacturing and Pandemic Preparedness and Response in Jakarta, Wednesday, June 24, reported by ANTARA.
Later, he said, these big countries can help other small countries through a self-sufficient health resilience system.
To build this independence, he asked the National Economic Council (DEN) to help encourage downstream processing so that all products purchased in health spending can be made in Indonesia, so that health spending can become Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the health sector.
"Well, I just persuaded the DEN, this is from the side of health spending, historically we are usually above 10 percent every year. Even last year it was 16 percent. Indeed, all of these expenditures have not been translated into economic growth in the health sector, because most of them are still imported," he said.
Because of these imports, he said, other countries enjoy GDP. Budi gave an example of paracetamol made from gasoline. Gasoline has been produced in Indonesia, but there has been no downstream processing that allows gasoline to become cumene, then cumene to become phenol, until finally it becomes paracetamol.
Another example is blood, which is used for a number of products, such as plasma, albumin, immunoglobulin, Factor VIII, and Factor IX. Although Indonesia has a large potential blood stock due to the large population, Budi said Indonesia still imports all of them.
"Well, Mr. Luhut also helped make the first plasma plant and it has become. Just wait for the permit, hopefully in 2027 we can produce 600 thousand liters per day, we don't have to import anymore," he said.
If this downstream is achieved, he said, it can help progress to achieve the 8 percent economic growth as envisioned by President Prabowo Subianto.
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