VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Screenshot of Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi during her virtual press statement from New York, the United States, on Saturday, September 25, 2021. (ANTARA/Yashinta Difa/rst) - 

The US government is committed to donating an additional 800 thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia through the global COVAX mechanism.

"There is a new commitment to add 800 thousand doses of vaccine through the COVAX facility that will arrive in Indonesia in the near future," Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi stated while delivering a virtual press statement regarding her activities in New York, Saturday.

The vaccine donation will result in the addition of 12,665,060 doses of vaccine that Indonesia had earlier received from the US.

US President Joe Biden had announced at the virtual COVID-19 Global Summit on September 22 that the US will donate an additional 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The donations will be sent to low- and middle-income nations worldwide from January 2022.

The commitment brings the total number of vaccines donated by the US to over 1.1 billion doses.

The US has shipped free-of-charge 160 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 100 countries, with millions of doses being dispatched on a daily basis.

At nearly all bilateral meetings with Indonesian partners, Minister Marsudi has discussed about COVID-19 handling.

"I told them that the positivity rate in Indonesia is currently below two percent on average or below the WHO standard of five percent. Earlier, Indonesia's positivity rate had reached 31 percent," she remarked while referring to the World Health Organization.

In particular, Marsudi urged several countries that still included Indonesia on the COVID-19 red list to reconsider the status given.

"One example, France has removed Indonesia from the red list," she noted.

In addition, Indonesia expressed concern over the inequality, discrimination, and politicization of vaccines.

Indonesia agreed with its partners to narrow the vaccine gap and stop discrimination and politicization over vaccines.

During the last two days on Sept 23-24, Minister Marsudi held bilateral meetings with 18 partners, including the high commissioner of UNHCR, secretary general of the Arab League, CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council, secretary general of the United Nations, prime minister of the Netherlands, president of Palau, the UK foreign minister, and the US special representative for Afghanistan.

Marsudi also met with foreign ministers from Sri Lanka, Japan, Mozambique, Pakistan, Serbia, Iran, France, Mauritania, and Thailand//ANT