MADRID, 25 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The top United Nations official in Indonesia, Valerie Julliand, has pointed to the “lack of global solidarity” and the slowness in the vaccination process as the main reasons why the country is currently the epicenter of COVID-19 infections on the continent. Asian.
Thanks to the application of restrictive measures, Indonesia had managed to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, like many other countries in Southeast Asia, as detailed by Julliand, although since May the health crisis has become “more urgent” and cases have increased fivefold, as stated in a UN statement.
And it is that the country had achieved “remarkable progress” in alleviating poverty during the last ten years, but the emergence of the coronavirus has delayed some of these achievements, and even more so in the most disadvantaged sectors of the population and, also, in the women.
A few days ago, Indonesia surpassed India and Brazil as the nation with the most daily infections, which has placed it as the current epicenter of cases in Asia, and even this Wednesday the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that in the country there had been registered more than 77,500 deaths due to the disease.
MAIN CAUSES
Julliand has pointed to neglect by society as one of the reasons for the unstoppable increase in cases, although the slowness in the vaccination process has also played a fundamental role, since in mid-July only six percent of the population had received some dose.
In this regard, the low coverage among the elderly and other groups vulnerable to the disease stands out. Although Indonesia had gotten a “relatively good supply” from the international body COVAX, “the lack of global solidarity” has been decisive.
“Rich countries stockpiled vaccines. Sad as it is, Indonesia is certainly not the worst off; only 1.1 percent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose of vaccination.” , has denounced the United Nations worker in the Asian country.
In this context, Indonesia introduced strict movement restrictions in Java and Bali in early July, and has since expanded those measures, but has not yet applied a movement limitation or blockade at the national level, as other countries have done in a similar situation.
To solve the situation, the UN has been providing “technical and operational support” and will put special interest in prevention, for which it will provide the means to carry out tests in terms of “equipment, protocols and training.”
“We have facilitated the arrival of 16.2 million doses of vaccines through COVAX facilities to date and we are helping with their dissemination, because the logistics of the cold chain is complex in an archipelago of 17,000 islands,” he said. targeted United Nations.
“There are some problems that can be contained in a country. But when it comes to viruses, they do not recognize borders and do not differentiate between rich and poor countries,” Julliand has settled.
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