Speaking at a press briefing on Saturday, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said the country had consistently promoted equal access to vaccines.

“We also support the waiver of patents for COVID-19 vaccines to boost global production capacity. This is one form of global collaboration to pave the way for equal access to vaccines for all,” Retno said after witnessing the arrival of more AstraZeneca vaccines at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, on Saturday.

Indonesia received 1.3 million doses of ready-to-administer AstraZeneca vaccines under the COVAX facility, a multilateral effort seeking to ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccination. The scheme is led by the World Health Organization, the GAVI vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Saturday’s shipment was the third batch of vaccines delivered under the multilateral scheme. In total, the country has received 6.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the multilateral platform.

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Retno conveyed the statement after US top trade envoy Katherine Tai said on Wednesday that her country would support waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines “in service of ending this pandemic.”

She said the US would “actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization [WTO] needed to make that happen.” 

Tai’s statement came amid calls from developing countries to share the technology behind the vaccines to help beef up production. In October 2020, India and South Africa introduced a proposal requesting a waiver from several provisions in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).

The proposal focused on “patents, industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information”, so they “do not create barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines […] essential to combat COVID-19.”

Foreign Ministry’s director for trade, commodity and intellectual property, Agustaviano Sofjan, said Indonesia hoped the US proposal could influence developed countries opposed to a TRIPS waiver.

“We hope US’ support can help push developed countries to agree with the proposal, so they can help developing and [least developed] countries gain better access to vaccines. It will also help countries like Indonesia to push for more vaccine production, which is needed by the world,” he said.

While many countries welcomed the US’ statement on the negotiation on the waiver proposal, observers noted such talk would take months amid significant opposition from some countries.

Key European countries, such as France and Germany, have distanced themselves from the US’ latest move. They argued sharing patents was not the issue when the UK and the US were notorious for blocking the export of vaccines and their ingredients to the wider world.

The EU, which is among the biggest producers of vaccines in the world, is also the main exporter, with around 200 million doses already shipped outside the bloc. Meanwhile, the US and UK had been adamant on halting exports of vaccines produced in their territories until domestic needs were met.

Speaking to journalists on Friday, EU Ambassador to ASEAN Igor Driesmans said the bloc had a “distinctly different policy” than other Western countries, and it was open to discuss “any other effective and pragmatic solutions” offered by the US.

“Our priority now is to ramp up the production capacity. We will study the [patent waiver] proposal that was made with an open mind,” Driesmans said. “But it should not distract some countries from [the call] for all vaccine producing countries to allow exports immediately and avoid measures that disrupt the supply chains.”

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As the country remains fully dependent on imported vaccines, Indonesian policymakers have been working to diversify vaccine supply. Aside from the AstraZeneca vaccines received for free through the COVAX facility, the country has received around 68.5 million doses purchased from China-based Sinovac Biotech Ltd. 

Indonesia has also received 1 million doses of vaccine produced by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), which will be used under the private vaccination scheme, dubbed the Gotong Royong vaccination program.

Early this year, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said Indonesia had “secured” vaccine supplies from four producers: Sinovac, AstraZeneca as well as US-based Novavax and BioNTech-Pfizer. The President has set a target to inoculate at least 70 million people nationwide by July. 

But the vaccination drive remained slow. The Health Ministry reported on Saturday that only around 8.6 million people have been fully vaccinated -- around 21 percent of the 40.3 million people targeted by the government.

The government previously rationed its vaccine use in response to expected delays in shipments of several vaccines, causing lags on the ongoing inoculation drive for at-risk populations, especially the elderly.

But the drive had resumed to its initial rate after the government recently announced more expected shipments of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX facility as well as from Sinovac.