Minister Of Foreign Affairs Retno Ensures, Indonesia Has 100 Million Stocks Of COVID-19 Vaccines As A Result Of Multilateral Cooperation

Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi (Source: Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

JAKARTA - Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that the Indonesian government had secured more than 100 million doses of vaccine through bilateral and multilateral cooperation efforts with other countries.

"Indonesia has secured and received 119,735,200 doses of vaccine, both from bilateral and multilateral cooperation," said Foreign Minister Retno during an online press conference quoted from Antara, Saturday, July 10.

Of this figure, 108.5 million doses were produced by Sinovac and 1.5 million doses from Sinopharm. Meanwhile, Indonesia has also received 8,236,800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX Facility and 998,400 doses of vaccine from the same manufacturer, which were donated by the Japanese government.

In addition, the United Arab Emirates has also provided a vaccine made by Sinopharm as many as 500,000 doses.

"With all the vaccines that Indonesia has obtained so far, Indonesia has been able to vaccinate with 49,618,000 doses, which is the fourth largest vaccination effort in Asia," added the Foreign Minister.

Currently, he continued, the Indonesian government is still making efforts to get more doses of the vaccine, in accordance with President Joko Widodo's direction to accelerate vaccination.

In the next few days, Indonesia is scheduled to receive more than three million Moderna vaccines administered by the United States in its first vaccine shipment, which will be followed by a second shipment.

Japan will also send an additional 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in the second shipment.

Furthermore, this month, additional vaccines from various countries, such as Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, and the COVAX Facility, are also expected to arrive in Indonesia.

“This is not an easy endeavor, given the limitations in supply and manufacturing processes. We all know that cooperation and collaboration is the key so that the world can get out of the pandemic," said the Foreign Minister.

Indonesia's attitude towards cooperation and collaboration is also reflected in the role of the Foreign Minister as Co-Chair in the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) Engagement Group. The COVAX facility itself has delivered 93 million doses of vaccine to 133 participants, of which 81 are AMC members.

A total of 528 million doses have been given to COVAX by donor countries through a dose-sharing mechanism, said the Foreign Minister.