Global Health Summit: President Jokowi Calls for Measures to Address Vaccine Gap

President Jokowi delivered speech in the virtual Global Health Summit 2021 (21/05/2021). (Photo by: Press Media and Information Bureau of the Presidential Secretariat)

COVID-19 pandemic can only be controlled and handled globally if all countries can fully recover from the spread of COVID-19, according to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

The President also called on world leaders to take concrete steps to address vaccine gap in order to facilitate fair and equitable access for all countries.

“No one is safe until everyone is,” President Jokowi said at the Global Health Summit held online on Friday (21/05/2021).

According to the President, 83 percent of the global vaccine supply has been secured by high-income countries of developed countries, while only up to 17 percent is secured by developing countries and 0,3 percent is available for low-income countries.

“Therefore, we have to immediately take concrete step to encourage vaccine doses-sharing schemes through the COVAX Facility to address the problem of vaccine supplies,” the President said.

In the long term, President Jokowi further said, the global community should be able to double vaccine production to meet global needs and build global health resilience.

“If the issue of vaccine production and distribution capacity are not addressed immediately, I am worried that it will takes us longer to tackle the pandemic,” the President added.

On that occasion, President Jokowi also said that G20 member countries have to give their support to boost production and facilitate equal access to vaccines for all countries.

The Indonesian Government, according to the President, supports Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Waiver proposal that aims to temporarily waive the obligation to protect intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 prevention, handling, or treatment, adding that the Government hopes that that all G20 member countries can lend the same support.

President Jokowi also expressed readiness to make Indonesia a hub to increase vaccine production in the Southeast Asia region, adding that G20 member countries must also contribute to build a robust global health resilience architecture to better deal with similar threats in the future.

“The principles in the Rome Declaration are essential to build global health resilience. However, those principles will be meaningless if we do not implement them concretely. Implementation is the key. The world can only recover and become stronger if we collaborate together. Recover together, recover stronger,” President Jokowi remarked.

For the record, the Global Health Summit is one of the G20 meetings under the 2021 Italian Presidency. The summit has produced an agreement called the Rome Declaration, which contains the principles of multilateral cooperation and a joint action to prevent global health crises in the future with a strong commitment to build healthier, safer, fairer, and sustainable world. (Press Media and Information Bureau of the Presidential Secretariat/UN) (AP/EP)