VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 17 - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin highlighted the government's unwavering efforts to ramp up the number of COVID-19 vaccines for the public to build herd immunity to end the pandemic.

The vice president made the statement when University of Indonesia (UI) Rector Ari Kuncoro visited him at his official residence in Jakarta on Monday.

"The number of vaccines, both free and independent, will continue to be increased," Amin noted in a statement received here on Wednesday.

Indonesia has provided two variants of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Sinovac and AstraZeneca. The government has also re-ordered the COVID-19 vaccine to meet the requirements of 70 percent of Indonesia's total populace, or some 182 million people.

Meanwhile, Kuncoro echoed UI's readiness to support the government in surmounting over the COVID-19 pandemic through research.

Innovations and research by the university are still related to handling the COVID-19 pandemic, comprising efforts to produce ventilators and flocked swabs for various health facilities in the regions.

"The University of Indonesia has been involved in clinical trials and has come up with various innovations to deal with the pandemic. The UI has, so far, made ventilators and flocked swabs that are used in various hospitals and other health facilities," Kuncoro noted.

Meanwhile, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Indonesia (FKUI) Ari Fahrial Syam, also present at the meeting, spoke of his involvement in producing the Merah Putih vaccine that was coordinated by the Ministry of Research and Technology/National Research and Innovation Agency.

The FKUI also provides training to 1,600 vaccinators that are ready to help the government to ensure that nationwide COVID-19 vaccinations are successfully conducted. (Antaranews)

Mar. 17 - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga suggested on Wednesday that he planned to let state of emergency curbs imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus expire on schedule on Sunday.

The situation regarding hospital bed availability in the capital region has improved, Suga said.

“The figures have moved in the direction of lifting (the emergency measures),” he told reporters.

“I will make a final decision towards ending the curbs after listening to the views of experts,” he added.

The government declared a state of emergency around New Year’s as Japan’s third and deadliest wave of COVID-19 cases took its toll.

Most prefectures affected by the declaration lifted the measures at the end of February, but Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures have remained under watch as the decline in new infections slowed.

The latest measures have had a less heavy impact on the economy than a previous nationwide emergency last year, which caused the largest economic slump on record in the second quarter.

But they dealt a heavy blow to service sector firms in particular as consumers have piled up savings, while manufacturers are benefiting from a pickup in overseas demand.

“Most scary is a resurgence” in COVID-19 cases, said Yuji Kuroiwa, the governor of Kanagawa, one of the four prefectures under emergency, which make up 30% of Japan’s population.

After the lifting of the emergency, the four prefectures - Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama - would continue to ask restaurants and bars to close by 9 p.m. at least until the end of the month to reduce the chance of a resurgence in infections, Kuroiwa said.

Under the state of emergency, the government has requested restaurants and bars to close an hour earlier, by 8 p.m, while also asking people to stay home after 8 p.m. unless they have essential reasons to go out.

Roughly 451,200 people have tested positive in Japan and nearly 9,000 have died since the pandemic reached the country. (Reuters)

Mar. 17 - G7 advanced economies have agreed to boost International Monetary Fund reserves by around $650 billion through a new allocation of the fund’s special drawing rights, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday.

The increased reserves will be used to fund a package of relief measures for emerging economies hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kyodo said.

Finance leaders of the Group of Seven economies will sign off on the deal at an online meeting to be held on Friday, Kyodo said without citing sources. (Reuters)

Mar. 17 - Rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections in hospitals in the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea were hitting its fragile health system “like a tornado”, with services shutting as staff fall ill, health workers said on Wednesday.

Australia said it would send 8,000 vaccines to its northern neighbour Papua New Guinea, responding to a request for urgent assistance for the country’s small health workforce of 5,000 nurses and doctors.

David Ayres, country director with Marie Stopes PNG, which has nurses in 13 hospitals, told Reuters health workers throughout the country were falling ill. He had received multiple reports from hospitals on Wednesday that between 10 and 25 staff had fallen ill and were off work.

Sections of major hospitals were shutting down and services were reduced, he said.

“The health system here was fragile to begin with. Frontline health services are often delivered late, sometimes they can’t be delivered at all, because of logistical or funding constraints,” Ayres told Reuters by telephone from the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby.

“When you have a tornado like this that rips into the heart of the health system the potential for a calamity is huge. That is what is scaring all of us at the moment.”

Papua New Guinea has high rates of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV in the community and health workers fear if they are overrun with COVID cases treatment of these other diseases will suffer.

Only 55,000 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in a population of 8.78 million, where 87% of people live in rural areas, many in isolated mountainous villages.

By Tuesday, PNG had reported 2,351 cases and 26 deaths since the start of the pandemic, with half of the cases recorded this month, and 600 in the past week.

Over 1,000 cases are in the National Capital District of Port Moresby, where the courts and government offices have shutdown in recent days after judges and lawmakers fell ill.

More than 100 workers including doctors and nurses at the Port Moresby General Hospital were in isolation, The National newspaper in Port Moresby reported.

“We are over-stressed. This is beyond our capacity,” the hospital’s chief executive Dr Paki Molumi was quoted as saying.

Pamela Toliman, a scientist at the PNG Institute of Medical Research which does testing, wrote on Twitter there is a “huge lag in updating this data”, and “cases are much higher” than the tally reported on Tuesday.

WaterAid Papua New Guinea’s director of programmes Navara Kiene said hand washing was the first line of defence against the spread of disease, but only only a third of households in rural areas have a handwashing facility with soap and water.

ChildFund PNG country director Bridgette Thorold said staff are taking sanitiser and PPE into villages and trying to overcome “fear and stigma and misconceptions about COVID”.

Many people live in crowded households and need to walk long distances to access health services for tuberculosis, she said.

“COVID didn’t initially seem that extreme compared to the challenges of day to day living and dealing with regular illnesses,” Thorold said in a telephone interview.

“All of last year there was less than a thousand cases so there was a scepticism. But now you are seeing health personnel with COVID.”

PNG Prime Minister James Marape is expected to announce details of a national isolation strategy later on Wednesday.

Thorold said many people earn daily cash wages by selling vegetables at markets, so a lockdown would be difficult. (Reuters)