VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

A total of 3,476,400 doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, procured through the multilateral vaccine-sharing COVAX facility, arrived in the Indonesian capital on Tuesday.

“Indonesia once again receives shipment from COVAX Facility multilateral platform, with (the arrival of) 3,476,400doses of AstraZeneca vaccines,” Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi, announced at an online press conference upon the arrival of the shipment on Tuesday.

With the eighth shipment from COVAX arriving in the country, Indonesia's vaccine procurement through the multilateral scheme has reached 14,704,860 vaccines as of July 13, 2021, she noted.



On July 12, 2021, Indonesia received 10,000,280 doses of the Sinovac vaccine in the form of bulk or raw materials, which will be processed domestically into ready-to-use shots, she said.



On Tuesday (July 13, 2021), the country also received another 1.408 million Sinopharm shots, she added.



“With these arrivals, Indonesia has secured and received a total of 137,611,540 vaccine doses, both in the forms of raw materials and ready-to-use shots,” Marsudi informed.



She further stated that in the coming days, Indonesia will receive an additional batch of Moderna vaccines, procured via a multilateral dose-sharing scheme, from the United States of America.


Shots procured under bilateral dose-sharing schemes will also arrive from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, she added.



Minister Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s firm support for equitable access to vaccines, highlighting the gap in the percentage of vaccinated populations across the globe.



“In North America and Europe, for example, 75 percent of the population has received vaccinations, whilst in Africa the number has only reached 4.03 percent, and 16.3 percent in the ASEAN region, from the total number of its population,” she noted.


She echoed the statement made by director-general of the World Health Organization that an additional 350 million doses are needed to vaccinate at least 10 percent of the population in every country by 2021. Furthermore, 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the global population by mid-2022.



“This is not an insubstantial challenge… However through cooperation and collaboration, and solidarity, this challenge can be addressed together,” Marsudi remarked. (Antaranews)