Carrying 5 Health Sector Targets, Minister Of Health Hopes To Be Presented At G20 Bali

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin. (doc of Public Relations Secretariat)

JAKARTA - Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin conveyed that Indonesia has five targets in the health sector which are expected to be conveyed to state leaders at the summit of the G20 Summit in Bali in November.

The five targets are establishing a reserve fund to overcome the pandemic, access to reserve funds fairly and quickly for pandemic emergency medical actions, integration of genome sequence labs around the world.

Furthermore, harmonization of travel standards between countries in the midst of a pandemic, and standardization or regoinalization of manufacturing hubs and vaccine research. All of this, said the Minister of Health, was conveyed by Indonesia at the G20 I Health Ministers Meeting which took place last Monday, June 20, in Yogyakarta.

The Minister of Health said that the first target that was carried out by Indonesia had been achieved at the HMM G20 event in Yogyakarta.

"The first is the establishment of a financial intermediary fund, this is a reserve fund to overcome the pandemic," said the Minister of Health after accompanying President Joko Widodo to receive a courtesy call from WHO at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, Monday, June 21, quoted from the official YouTube Secretariat of the President.

The Minister of Health then appreciated the assistance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi and the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati in the formation of the reserve fund.

He also revealed that there had been more than US$1 billion that several countries and institutions had committed to donate to the reserve fund.

"Secondly, we also discussed with WHO how the money in this fund can be used to access fairly and quickly, the term is emergency medical countermeasures, so vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools," said the Minister of Health.

The Minister of Health explained that WHO will later have the authority to determine which countries need assistance and what segments of people can be prioritized if the next pandemic occurs.

For the second target, the Minister of Health emphasized the importance of cooperation between the government and the private sector, considering that the majority of the production of vaccines, medicines, and health diagnostic tools is carried out by the private sector.

"The third is that we are talking about the integration of genome sequence labs around the world," he said.

The laboratory functions to identify new viruses, variants, and bacteria and the Minister of Health added that in the HMM G20 I in Yogyakarta, efforts to integrate data from similar laboratories in the world have been discussed.

"The fourth one has also been implemented, how can we harmonize travel standards, both in the form of vaccine certificates and testing certificates," he said.

This aspect is important to ensure that if the next pandemic occurs and a response is needed to implement a regional quarantine or lockdown, healthy and vaccinated people can still move between countries in order to maintain the flow of goods and economic circulation.

Minister of Health Budi said that the harmonization is still based on WHO standards and has had successful cases that apply among more than 30 European Union member countries.

"Lastly, what is important is that we want to use standardization or regionalization from manufacturing and research hubs (vaccines), not only in northern countries but also in southern countries," he said.

This responds to the issue of vaccine availability and accents around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, so that Indonesia feels the need for more vaccine factories and vaccine development research capabilities, especially those based on new technology, mRNA, in southern countries.

According to the Minister of Health, there are at least four other G20 member countries besides Indonesia that are ready to participate to help realize the target. South Africa can do it in the African region, Brazil and Argentina in the South America region, and India accompanies Indonesia in Asia.

The Minister of Health hopes that the targets carried out by Indonesia can achieve good progress in the G20 I HMM, so that at the next meeting which is scheduled to take place in October these things can be finalized so that they can be presented concretely at the peak of the 17th G20 Summit in Bali later. .

Strengthening the global health architecture has indeed become one of the focuses in Indonesia's G20 presidency along with digital economic transformation and transition.