TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
COVID-19: Jokowi urges G20 countries to develop vaccine, win 'war' against the pandemic
Finance ministers of G20 member states have indicated they plan to allocate US$4 billion to accelerate research into finding a COVID-19 vaccine, Sri Mulyani said.
Change Size
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo attending the Group of 20 Summit held virtually at the Bogor Palace in West Java on March 26. (Presidential Press Bureau/Courtesy of Cabinet Secretariat)
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has called for G20 leaders to spearhead the development of vaccines to win "the war" against the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic during the group's first video-conference summit on Thursday evening.
Jokowi joined the virtual teleconference hosted remotely by G20 chairman and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to discuss international efforts and stronger cooperation to fight the spread of COVID-19.
“The G20 must actively lead efforts to find a COVID-19 antivirus and vaccine together with the World Health Organization,” the Indonesian President said as quoted in a press statement released by the Presidential Secretariat.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who had accompanied Jokowi in the meeting, said all G20 member countries, the WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) would collaborate in efforts to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development.
Read also: G20 leaders to inject $5 trillion into global economy to fight coronavirus
“The finance ministers of the G20 have indicated they would allocate US$4 billion to be mobilized throughout the world, especially in the G20 countries, to accelerate research and find a COVID-19 vaccine. This issue is currently under discussions at the level of the G20's finance ministers,” Sri Mulyani said after the teleconference.
In a joint statement adopted at the summit, G20 leaders agreed to further commit to work together to increase research and development funding for vaccines and medicines, leverage digital technologies and strengthen international scientific cooperation.
“We will bolster our coordination, including with the private sector, toward rapid development, manufacturing and distribution of diagnostics, antiviral medicines and vaccines,” the statement said.
On the occasion, Jokowi also encouraged G20 member countries to work together to synchronize economic policies and instruments to counter the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read also: Indonesian manufacturers step up as G20 nations coordinate global medical supply
The President stressed at the end of his statement that G20 countries had a role to foster world confidence to get through the health crisis.
Indonesia was among the latest to step up its battle against the coronavirus as the archipelago had just announced its first confirmed COVID-19 cases on March 2, weeks after many other countries around the world announced their first positive cases on their soil.
With 1,046 confirmed cases and 87 fatalities as of Friday, Indonesia's death toll is now the highest in Southeast Asia and its mortality rate of 8.3 percent is among the highest in the world.
The global death toll from the coronavirus, which first emerged in China late last year, has now passed 24,000, with the number of infections globally closing in on half a million. An estimated 3 million people have been forced into lockdown.
