Indonesia donates US $1 million to further CEPI's vaccine research and combat epidemic threats
24 November 2020, Oslo, Norway and Jakarta, Indonesia — The Government of Indonesia and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, have today announced that Indonesia will provide a financial contribution of US $1 million to support CEPI's efforts to advance the development of vaccines against epidemic diseases.
The commitment was formally made today at a virtual signing ceremony by Secretary General of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Cecep Herawan and CEO of CEPI, Dr. Richard Hatchett, and witnessed by the Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Her Excellency Retno L.P. Marsudi. The signing marked Indonesia's membership in the coalition.
Minister Retno underlined the importance of a strong leadership to defeat the virus:
Indonesia chooses to walk the talk and lead by example by contributing within its capacity to vaccine multilateralism to protect its people and the world.
Indonesia's collaboration with CEPI also has a long-term strategic objective. Under CEPI's mechanism, we hope that Indonesian pharmaceutical industries, such as Bio Farma, could become important players in the global vaccine network.
This collaboration will help strengthen our national health resilience and capacity to respond to future pandemics as a foundation for regional and global health resilience.
Vaccines are one of our most important public health tools in the fight against current and future infectious disease outbreaks, and, as highlighted by the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, it's only through collective action and global solidarity that we can quickly develop these tools to effectively respond to such crises.
We are therefore delighted to welcome Indonesia to the coalition and are grateful for their contribution to advance CEPI's efforts. Through Indonesia's knowledge and expertise in vaccine development and manufacturing, we can work together to support our shared goals to develop safe, effective and globally accessible vaccines and better prepare for future outbreaks.
Her Excellency Retno L.P. Marsudi and Dr. Richard Hatchett
As the COVID-19 pandemic shows, infectious disease outbreaks pose a real and growing threat to global health security. Launched in 2017, CEPI is working to accelerate the development of vaccines against diseases with epidemic potential — including Nipah, a zoonotic disease which has caused outbreaks across SouthEast Asia - and enable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks.
Provided through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indonesia's financial contribution will further vaccine programmes against Nipah, alongside CEPI's other target diseases - Lassa Fever, Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya, and Ebola — and the advancement of rapid-response platforms to quickly develop vaccines in response to an unknown threat (known as ‘Disease X'). The overall collective goal of the partnership is to strengthen national and global health security and the world's ability to prepare and combat future disease threats.
In addition to running vaccine programmes against its priority disease threats, CEPI moved quickly and in collaboration with its global health partners to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Built on the principles of speed, scale and access, CEPI has to date supported the development of nine COVID-19 vaccine candidates, with eight of the nine in clinical testing and three programmes in late-stage efficacy trials.
Indonesia has been actively participated in fostering global solidarity and international cooperation for COVID-19 mitigation. Indonesia is part of COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator co-led by CEPI, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop, manufacture and equitably deliver up to 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021 and end the acute phase of the pandemic. To date, a total of 187 economies, representing over 90% of the global population, are engaged in the initiative, with Indonesia eligible to receive vaccines for 3 to 20% populations through the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), a financing mechanism of COVAX that will support access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines.
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Notes to Editors
Photos from today's virtual signing ceremony, held between CEPI and Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, marking Indonesia's commitment to CEPI, are available here.
About CEPI
CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated nine partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes are leveraging rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.
Before the emergence of COVID-19, CEPI's priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).
An additional US $800m is needed to support CEPI's COVID-19 programmes. For investor enquiries, please email [email protected].
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About Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indonesia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was founded on 19 August 1945, two days after the independence of Indonesia. H.E. Retno L.P. Marsudi has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs since October 2014.
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