United States Grants 100 Ventilators And Rp. 187 Billion For Indonesia To Face COVID-19

The Ministry of State receives assistance from the United States to deal with the pandemic (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government in Jakarta, Tuesday, received assistance of 100 ventilators and a grant of Rp. 187 billion from the United States Government to assist the response to COVID-19 and economic recovery in the country.

The medical equipment assistance was handed over by the Chargé d'Affaires of the United States Embassy in Jakarta, Heather Variava, to the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health, Oscar Primadi, and witnessed by Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jakarta.

"The delivery of this assistance is a follow-up to the conversation between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and US President Donald Trump on April 24, 2020. Overall, there are 1,000 ventilators that will be sent from the US to Indonesia via several shipments throughout August," said Retno Marsudi. , Tuesday, July 28.

Retno, who represented the Government of Indonesia, expressed her appreciation and gratitude to the US Government for this assistance.

According to him, the symbolic handover of 100 ventilators today contains two important messages.

"First, the delivery of this aid is an example of real collaboration to tackle a pandemic together. Collective responses are the key to facing a challenge of this magnitude," he said.

"Second, I hope that the cooperation between Indonesia and the US does not stop here, but will continue and not only to tackle COVID-19, but also the threat of a future pandemic and jointly support global health governance," Retno continued.

Meanwhile, Chargé d'Affaires of the US Embassy in Jakarta, Heather Variava, said that the US government has also distributed grants worth approximately Rp. 187 billion to the Indonesian government.

The assistance is part of a fund of Rp. 22 trillion allocated by the US to help a number of countries cope with the pandemic and restore their economic sectors affected by COVID-19.

"This donation is a form of our commitment to the Indonesian people, especially to help Indonesia reopen the economic sector safely," said Variava in his remarks.

As well as assistance from the government, one of the universities in the US, the University of Rhode Island, announced last month that it would send around 140 ventilators to several regions in Indonesia, one of which is Papua Province.

The ventilator was designed and assembled by approximately 100 faculty members, university staff, and University of Rhode Island students, some of whom came from Indonesia.

Not only from the US, Indonesia also received 100 ventilators from the Australian Government this month.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, Indonesia has built partnerships with approximately 120 institutions, including 11 countries, 12 international organizations and 97 non-governmental organizations, to tackle the impact of the pandemic.

WHO through its official website announced that as of July 27, 2020 the number of positive patients with COVID-19 in the world had reached more than 16 million people and 646,641 of them died.

The United States still ranks first for the country with the largest number of positive cases, namely 4,433,410 people. Meanwhile, Indonesia ranks 24th with 100,303 positive cases, surpassing China which reported a total of 83,959 positive cases.

COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan City, China, at the end of last year. Since then until today, COVID-19 has spread to approximately 216 countries and territories.