Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin said President Jokowi emphasized the need to build a new global health system architecture as soon as possible. This, said Budi, was conveyed by Jokowi when attending the virtual Global COVID-19 Summit, Thursday (23/9) from the Bogor Presidential Palace.
“Seeing that the world health system is not local, with this pandemic, it is very clear that the health system of one country is very closely related to the health system of another country. And if we see that the world’s financial system is organized globally, the architecture is good, then Indonesia feels the need for the architecture of the global health system to be well laid out,” said Budi.
Furthermore, the President, said Budi, also stated the need to build a global mechanism for health resources that can be accessed by all countries, especially if developing countries are facing a health crisis. He gave an example of how the global financial resilience system that has been built through the IMF has proven to be able to save a country’s financial condition both fiscally and monetaryly when there are problems.
“Indonesia feels that we need to build a system support global health, which is similar to the global financial support system such as the IMF,” he said.
The next thing that is important according to Jokowi is the need to develop a health protocol that has international standards, so that all global activities such as transportation systems, meetings or other events can follow the same health protocol standards. This is Jokowi’s main concern, considering that Indonesia will hold the G20 Presidency next year.
Not to forget, in this event, Jokowi emphasized that Indonesia is ready to become a country that has a world vaccination center that can meet global vaccination needs.
“Indonesia is also committed to being ready to become one of the global manufacturing hubs for the MRNA vaccine, which will be needed to vaccinate millions of people in the world. Indonesia states that we are ready to develop a new global architecture for health security systems and are also ready to contribute and develop a financial system that can support developing countries experiencing health problems wherever they are,” he concluded.
Jokowi’s presence at the Global COVID-19 Summit at the personal invitation of United States President Joe Biden. On this occasion, said Budi, Jokowi was one of four world leaders personally selected by Biden to provide input on how to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the event, Biden himself conveyed three important points that must be carried out by world leaders today. First, all world leaders must commit to vaccinating humanity as soon as possible. The World Health Organization (WHO) itself targets 40 percent of the world’s population to have been vaccinated this year, and 70 percent next year. Second, Biden also, said Budi, invited all world leaders to jointly prepare all medical devices, medicines and other important things needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Third, we must prepare ourselves to build a better future, we must build a global architecture of world health resilience. We must prepare how world health financing can be better managed, so that if there are countries in the world that have health problems, they can be immediately assisted, just as if there are countries in the world experiencing financial difficulties, international agencies such as the IMF can help,” explained Budi.
“He (Biden) also emphasized that to build a better future, be better prepared to face the next pandemic, all countries must have good health resilience, not only developed countries, but also developing countries,” he added.
Strengthening the Global Health Resilience System
Epidemiologist from Australia’s Griffith University, Dicky Budiman, said that the global health resilience system contained in the international health regulation (IHR) since 2005 already has a fairly good foundation in the event of a health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the problem is that he saw that so far the system in the IHR was not implemented properly so that when the pandemic hit, not a single country was ready to face the crisis in the health sector.
“Actually, the world already has it, where Indonesia has ratified it” international health regulation (IHR) 2005, which we found that during this pandemic period, there were many loopholes in the IHR that had to be improved or there were also those of a nature that should have been implemented but not implemented, such as the problem of early detection or the importance of early detection, then there is how the notification of cooperation between countries, including the issue of limiting flights between countries, is also there,” he told VOA.
Therefore, in his opinion, it is better for the global health resilience system in the IHR to be strengthened after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, this is easier than having to create a new global health security system architecture, which must be agreed upon by many countries.
“So in my observation now it is strengthening its nature, if building it is not an easy thing, moreover something that must be agreed upon by many countries can produce it annually. IHR 2005 revision was also annual at that time. It was the SARS pandemic that accelerated the revision,” he concluded. [gi/lt]
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