Australia is working together with Indonesia to respond to the challenges posed by COVID-19 and to assist our friend and partner in its national vaccine roll out. Indonesia would like to better understand why communities are resistant to getting a COVID-19 jab before it can effectively implement vaccination against the virus.
Through Australia’s funding to UNICEF, we have supported the development of a COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy study. This has given Indonesia vital data about why some groups are hesitant to being vaccinated for COVID-19. Now Indonesia can better respond to the concerns of these groups by developing health materials that better target their specific concerns and counter misinformation about vaccines.
Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), is working with scientists at Indonesia’s Ministry of Health National Laboratory (NIHRD) and Eijkman Institute to boost COVID-19 response capability and accelerate vaccine research. Together these leaders in their field will develop new solutions to the COVID-19 challenge which has impacted so many communities across our region. Specifically, these scientists are working together to enhance Indonesia’s genome sequencing capacity to allow the country to track COVID-19 variants and provide critical insights about emerging disease hotspots.
Learn more about Australia’s end-to-end support under the initiative here.
