Jakarta (Indonesia Window) – Indonesia received 3.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine from the United States under a dose-sharing cooperation through the COVAX Facility multilateral platform on Sunday (Aug 1).

The arrival of the Moderna vaccine from the United States (U.S.) at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang district, Banten province, was the third stage, said Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in a written statement received here on Monday.

"Earlier, Indonesia received 4,500,160 doses of vaccine from the U.S. in two stages (as many as 3,000,060 doses and 1,500,100 doses)," the foreign minister pointed out.

With the arrival of the third phase, the number of Moderna ready-to-use vaccine that has been received by Indonesia from the U.S government through the COVAX Facility is 8,000,160 doses.

On August 2, 2021, Indonesia also received 620,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through a dose-sharing cooperation with the British government, following intensive communication between Minister Retno and her counterpart, Dominic Raab.

"Our last discussion was to finalize this dose-sharing collaboration with Secretary Raab on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Mattera, Italy on June 29, 2021," said Retno.

The Indonesian FM expressed her appreciation to the U.S. and the British governments for the vaccines provided for Indonesia.

The dose sharing mechanism is a way to save the world from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the addition of 3.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine, Indonesia has received 178,357,880 doses of vaccine, consisting of 144,700,280 doses of vaccines in bulk and 33,657,600 doses of ready-to-use vaccines.

"In terms of sources, the COVAX Facility has distributed 19,704,960 doses of ready-to-use vaccines to Indonesia for free," explained the Indonesian foreign minister, adding that in August, there would be a number of vaccine deliveries to Indonesia.

FM Retno noted that over the past week, the world is still facing a 9 percent increase in coronavirus infection cases.

"On July 30, 2021, WHO’s Director General even said that in the last four weeks, the increase in global cases increased by 80 percent due to the Delta variant," she said.

According to Retno, a significant increase in cases of corona virus infection was found in the Southeast Asia region, with the death rate increasing by 10 percent compared to last week.

"In the period of July 19-25, 2021, WHO recorded death toll of 69,000 people, an increase of 21 percent from the previous week," said the foreign minister.

In addition, she added, WHO’s Director General was concerned over the wide vaccination gap at the global level.

"This week, the number of vaccine doses that have been jabbed compared to the population in the European region is 84.9 percent and in North America is 82.5 percent. Meanwhile, in the African region, the number is only 4.6 percent and the ASEAN region is only 21.7 percent," Retno noted.

Indonesia, so far, has inoculated 67,761,337 doses of vaccine against COVID-19, or about 24.49 percent of the total population.

Reporting by Indonesia Window