Jakarta. Indonesia has promised to help Afghanistan to vaccinate its people against the highly contagious polio.

Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi recently visited Doha, Qatar, among others, to join a string of talks on Afghanistan. This includes the special envoys meeting on Afghanistan hosted by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres.

"After consulting with the World Health Organization [WHO], Indonesia is committed to helping provide 10 million doses of polio vaccines for the people of Afghanistan," Retno said in a recorded video statement on her Doha visit.

“This [vaccine provision] is in response to the polio outbreak in Afghanistan and also at the request of the local authorities,” Retno said. 

Preparations are also underway, be it with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, as well as the state-run polio vaccine producer Bio Farma, according to Retno. 

Bio Farma produces the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), which they claimed to be “the world’s first new-gen polio vaccine”. Bio Farma’s production capacity for the nOPV2 vaccine stands at more than 500 million doses annually.

“We are in the process of installing a filling line 2 to boost the [production] capacity of the nOPV2. We are exporting 300 million to 400 million doses of nOPV2 vaccine a year,” Bio Farma VP corporate secretary Rifa Herdian said earlier.