VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

World Bank President David Malpass said on Tuesday he is seeking board approval for a $12 billion coronavirus vaccine financing plan to help poor and developing countries secure a sufficient share of vaccine doses when they become available in the coming months.

Malpass told Reuters in an exclusive interview that the initiative, part of $160 billion in coronavirus aid financing pledged by the multilateral lender, is aimed at helping countries procure and distribute vaccines early to healthcare and other essential workers and expand global production. He said the board was expected to consider the plan in early October.

Global competition for early coronavirus vaccine doses is already fierce, months ahead of any approvals, as wealthy countries move to secure supplies.

The U.S. government has pledged over $3 billion to secure hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines under development by Britain's AstraZeneca Plc AZN.L and by U.S. drug giant Pfizer Inc PFE.N and Germany's BioNTech SE 22UAy.F.

Malpass said the World Bank plan aimed to put poor and middle-income countries, where the virus is spreading most rapidly, on the same footing as richer countries by ensuring they have financing to secure supplies and a system for distribution, which will encourage drugmakers to meet their demand.

Without early doses that can bring outbreaks under control, many of these countries risk economic collapse that will push hundreds of millions of people back into poverty.

“Our goal is to alter the course of the pandemic for the low- and middle-income developing countries,” Malpass said. “This is a market signal to the manufacturers that there will be financing available for the developing countries and there will be demand. We will begin asking the manufacturers to begin creating allocations for these countries.”Malpass said the World Bank also was asking wealthy countries that have “over-reserved” more doses than they will ultimately need to release those doses to poorer countries.

He added that he is working to persuade countries that equitable distribution of vaccines “is important to the world and will give a better outcome for the world.”

Separately, Brent McIntosh, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, told a Foreign Policy magazine forum on Tuesday that wealthy countries were working on broad vaccine availability.

“There have been intense conversations among various developed countries on ensuring that there are vaccines available in the developing world and those conversations are ongoing at the highest levels,” said McIntosh, who oversees U.S. involvement in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The World Bank program will disburse grant or loan funding to countries, and will be able to select any vaccine that meets safety criteria, including approval from multiple “highly respected, stringent regulatory agencies,” such as those in the United States, Canada, Japan and several European countries, Malpass said.

The World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Financing Corp, in July launched a $4 billion financing platform to boost investment in developing country production of vaccines and other critical health products. (Reuters)

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan revealed the upstream to downstream strategies in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, including building a quarantine center and patient care management.

Luhut, who is also Deputy Chair of the Policy Committee for Control of COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPC PEN) in a written statement in Jakarta, Tuesday, explained two upstream strategies- behavior change campaign by the government and various stakeholders and early detection of the spread of COVID-19 and increased tracing and isolation.

The second step is to build quarantine and isolation centers for asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 patients (OTG) in cities with the highest cases. This location will still provide facilities according to the patient's needs, such as medical equipment and medicine.

"At this (downstream) stage, we fix the management of COVID-19 patient care to increase the recovery rate and decrease the mortality rate," he said.

Luhut explained that the Ministry of Health had made a Standard Protocol to treat COVID-19 Patients which contained a standard reference for handling COVID-19 patients from mild, moderate, to severe degrees. The guidebook also includes the tools and drugs that must be given to COVID-19 patients.

"These drugs mainly come from domestic production," he added.

Luhut confirmed that the Indonesian people would be able to immediately obtain the COVID-19 vaccine which is expected to enter the country from November 2020 to December 2021.

Luhut visited the Central Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) Emergency Warehouse on Tuesday accompanied by PMI Chairman Jusuf Kalla.

The warehouse functions to store logistics owned by PMI in its efforts to handle COVID-19. The activity was also attended by Ginanjar Kartasasmita as Deputy Chairman of PMI, Septian Hario Seto as Deputy for Investment and Mining Coordination at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment, and several representatives of the Central PMI.

Luhut was given the honor to participate in releasing the PMI disinfectant spraying fleet, namely 45 Gunners who will spray the main roads of Greater Jakarta, 200 minivans, and 160 three-wheeled vehicles, and 1000 sprayers carrying disinfectants that can spray disinfectants in alleys and narrow roads in Jabodetabek area.

PMI itself has initiated spraying activities using gunner tanks which were carried out in 10 Provincial PMIs in 53 districts/cities. In addition, PMI also sprayed disinfectants at public facilities in 34 Provincial PMIs in 382 districts/cities.

"The beneficiaries of this activity are more than 51 million people, 20,474,913 people for gunner tanks and 31,005,056 people for spraying in public facilities," Jusuf Kalla said. (Antaranews)

Positive cases of the Covid-19 in Indonesia continue to increase. Latest data from kemenkes.go.id until Tuesday, coronavirus cases in Indonesia jumped by 4,002 cases. 

With the addition of these cases, the total number of positive corona cases in Indonesia is 282,724, an increase compared to yesterday's 278,722 cases.

This data was obtained from specimen tests carried out in the last 24 hours to 37,158 people.

Meanwhile, the number of corona positive patients who died rose by 128. With this addition, the total number of patients who died from Covid-19 was 10,601, compared to 10,473 the previous day. Meanwhile, the number of patients who recovered from Covid-19 increased by 3,567.

With this number, the total number of patients who recovered from corona reached 210,437, an increase compared to the previous day, namely 206,870 people. (RRI)

The Minister of Trade, Agus Suparmanto, confirmed that lye soda exports to Ukraine were not subject to the implementation of the safeguard rules because Ukraine had stopped investigating Indonesian lye products.

"Ensuring the smooth access to exports of Indonesian products in destination markets is part of our commitment to increasing exports, particularly to non-traditional export destination countries. This export opportunity needs to be made good use of by Indonesian producers or exporters,” the Trade Minister said through an official statement in Jakarta, Tuesday.

The termination of the safeguard investigation has been stated in the notification of the World Trade Organization (WTO) dated 16 September 2020.

The Ukrainian government has stopped the investigation based on the decision of the Interdepartmental Commission for International Trade Number SP-462/2020 / 4411-03 dated 2 September 2020. The lye product is chemical compounds that are alkaline and are made in the form of flakes, pellets, or granules.

The benefits of lye in the industry include the need for making pulp and paper, textiles, and drinking water. In addition, this product is also used for the process of making aqua dest and aquabidest water, soap, detergent, and the glass-making industry.

The metallurgical and metal mineral mining products processing and printing industries, as well as the seaweed processing industry, are among the users of lye in large quantities. The Ukrainian authorities initiated a safeguard investigation on the import of the said product on February 7, 2020.

The Indonesian government through the Directorate of Trade Security, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Trade, in collaboration with the Indonesian Embassy in Ukraine, actively participated during the investigation process by submitting a written defense and monitoring the progress of the investigation intensively.

The Director-General of Foreign Trade, Didi Sumedi, believes that the efforts made by the Ministry of Trade to safeguard the export opportunities of Indonesian products to non-traditional countries will yield positive results.

"Indonesia did not contribute to the increase in imports of lye, which triggered the initiation of a safeguard investigation. We believe that Indonesian producers or exporters have the potential to compete in the Ukrainian market,” Didi said. 

Meanwhile, Director of Trade Security Pradnyawati added that the Ministry of Trade is committed to overseeing and securing export market access for Indonesian products to encourage exports to non-traditional countries, including Ukraine.

"In the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, many countries are using trade security instruments to protect their domestic markets. We are committed to guarding and securing export access to Indonesian products, and ensuring that trade security investigations are carried out fairly and transparently," Pradnyawati said. (Antaranews)