Gov’t Rolls Out 55 Innovative Products to Combat COVID-19

President Jokowi inspects innovation products to speed up COVID-19 handling. (Photo by: BPMI).

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday (20/5) officially launched 55 innovation products to support Indonesia’s advanced pandemic countermeasure.

According to the President, there are nine new inventions, including products that have been tested through clinical trials and are ready for mass production.

“There are emergency ventilators that can be produced up to 200 units,” President Jokowi said.

The President also said that two of emergency ventilators are developed by the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) in collaboration with state-owned electronics manufacturer PT LEN Industri and PT Dharma Polimetal.

In the meantime, one of three ventilators is developed by the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and has passed clinical trials to produce 1,000 units, he added.

“I think we can produce our own medical devices. We will no longer need to import,” he said.

In addition to those emergency ventilators, the President added, there are also a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) coronavirus test kit developed by state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma, which  can be produced up to 100,000 units and a rapid diagnostic test kit under the development of PT Hepatika Mataram, the BPPT, Airlangga University, and Gadjah Mada University.

The rapid diagnostic test kit is ready for 1,000 units production.

“I think this is our pride because we can produce them domestically. If we have sufficient medical device capacity in the country, we can export them to other countries,” the President said, while expressing hope that both the works and research can continue and will not stop only at the laboratory or end as prototypes.

In fact, the President added, the research should be developed into mass production to meet domestic demands. (BPMI/EN)

Translated by: Syarifah Aisyah
Reviewed by: M. Ersan Pamungkas