Jakarta (ANTARA) - Following the lifting of the COVID-19 emergency status by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Indonesian Government has shifted focus to strengthening the national health system, the Presidential Staff Office (KSP) has said.
"The lifting of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) status of COVID-19 by the WHO means that member states should no longer respond to COVID-19 as an emergency situation,” KSP expert staff Brian Sri Prahastuti explained here on Tuesday.
Thus, she said, the country's response must now be directed at strengthening the health system in a long-term and systemic way, and cover the six components of health laid down by the WHO.
The government is striving to strengthen the national health system to ensure vigilance and preparedness in facing the risk of possible future pandemics. The six components of health, according to the WHO, include health efforts, financing, human resources, medicines and health supplies, health information, and health governance.
Prahastuti said that the Ministry of Health is in the process of carrying out health transformation to strengthen the national health system. The system was previously regulated by Presidential Regulation No. 72 of 2012.
"This transformation is necessary because, in the digital era, the health demand has changed. Meanwhile, scientific advances in medicine and Indonesia's experience in facing the COVID pandemic have made this transformation inevitable," she stated.
The government is optimistic about the national health transformation program, as the country has shown extraordinary work and quick response in handling the COVID-19 pandemic,she said.
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Indonesia also earned praise for its successful COVID-19 handling at the 7th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) in May last year. "Since the beginning, the COVID-19 response in Indonesia has taken a comprehensive approach. In addition to responding to the health sector, the government also thinks about social and economic protection," Prahastuti said.