Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi has called for diversification of vaccine manufacturing to developing countries at the First Meeting of the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation.
“We have to encourage international cooperation to accelerate global vaccination by increasing the production capacity through diversification,” she said in a written statement issued on Friday.
She also emphasized the importance of international cooperation to assist developing countries in improving essential infrastructure, research centers, production lines, cold storage facilities, as well as human resources. The collaboration should be able to facilitate access to raw materials, issuance of intellectual property rights, transfer of technology including for mRNA vaccines, as well as sound financing schemes, she added.
At the forum, the minister urged all countries to support the COVAX’s vaccine sharing mechanism, which seeks to cover 20 percent of the world’s population, especially in low-income countries.
The conference was attended by the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Director General of the World Health Organization, foreign ministers and high-ranking officials of more than 23 countries, representatives of other international organizations, as well as several vaccine companies and research institutions. The forum ended with the release of a joint statement on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation.
Indonesia’s participation at the conference shows it continues to be committed in encouraging all countries to strengthen international solidarity and collaboration in tackling the pandemic, especially in making vaccines global public goods, the minister said.
According to WHO’s website, as of August 5, 2021, around 200 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded globally. Meanwhile, just 3,984,596,440 vaccine doses have been administered across the world, as against the total global population of around 7.9 billion people.
Source: Antara News