VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Health Ministry received 300 vaccine refrigerators donated by the Japanese government to support COVID-19 vaccination program in Indonesia.

During the aid handover event here on Sunday, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin noted that logistical facility became one of the factors that determined Indonesia's success in implementing COVID-19 vaccination program over the last 17 months.

"Someone once asked me, how Indonesia managed to successfully conduct vaccination that within 17 months it had given 415 million shots to more than 205 million people. One of them is thanks to the (availability of) logistics," he said.

The availability of logistics in the form of cold temperature vaccine storage facility had contributed to 15 percent of the country's readiness in winning the war against the pandemic.

During the war against SARS-CoV-2, the health system in Indonesia had been bolstered with the procurement of cold chain vaccine storage units with temperature of minus 82 degrees Celsius which is ideal for tropical countries.

"As a result, we can serve and distribute vaccines to 17.000 islands and 270 million Indonesian population," Sadikin remarked.

The vaccine storage units that Indonesia owned, which comprise 44 units of ultra cold storage, comes from transaction from UNICEF through the COVAX facility scheme.

These equipments have been distributed to 34 provinces in Indonesia and are available in state-run Pharmaceutical Enterprise PT Bio Farma Bandung, West Java.

During the event, Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia Kenji Kanasugi praised Indonesia's leadership in the health sector of G20 forum.

The procurement of 300 vaccine refrigerator equipment units aims to support Indonesia in realizing global health system resiliency.

These vaccine refrigerator units have been distributed since two days ago and more will come this year to ensure the success of COVID-19 vaccination in the country, he said.

Vaccine is the primary key for a country to deal with the challenges of the pandemic through prevention, preparedness, and response strategy.

Japan donated almost seven million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia. The Indonesian government currently has adequate vaccine stocks for its population, he noted. (Antaranews)