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. 2022 Sep;69(6):757-767.
doi: 10.1111/zph.12976. Epub 2022 May 26.

Building on health security capacities in Indonesia: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic responses and challenges

Dewi Nur Aisyah  1   2 , Chyntia Aryanti Mayadewi  2 , Meiwita Budiharsana  3 , Dewi Amila Solikha  4 , Pungkas Bahjuri Ali  4 , Gayatri Igusti  5 , Zisis Kozlakidis  6 , Logan Manikam  1   5
Affiliations

Building on health security capacities in Indonesia: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic responses and challenges

Dewi Nur Aisyah et al. Zoonoses Public Health. 2022 Sep.

Abstract

As an active member country of the WHO's International Health Regulation and Global Health Security Agenda, Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous and largest archipelagic country has recorded the second-highest COVID-19 cases in Asia with over 1.8 million cases in early June 2021. This geographically and socially diverse country has a dynamic national and sub-national government coordination with decentralized authorities that can complicate a pandemic response which often requires nationally harmonized policies, adaptability to sub-national contexts and global interconnectedness. This paper analyses and reviews COVID-19 public data, regulations, guidance documents, statements and other related official documents to present a narrative that summarizes the government's COVID-19 response strategies. It further analyses the challenges and achievements of the country's zoonotic diseases preparedness and responses and lastly provides relevant recommendations. Findings are presented in four sections according to the Global Health Security Agenda capacities, namely epidemiological surveillance (detect capacity); laboratory diagnostic testing (respond capacity); data management and analysis (enable capacity); and the role of sub-national governments. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for the rapid transformation of existing surveillance systems, inter-related stakeholder coordination and agile development from the pre-pandemic health security capacities. This paper offers several recommendations on surveillance, laboratory capacity and data management, which might be useful for Indonesia and other countries with similar characteristics beyond the COVID-19 response, such as achieving long-term health security, zoonoses and pandemic prevention, as well as a digital transformation of their governmental capacities.

Keywords: COVID-19; Indonesia; health security; laboratories; pandemics; policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

None to be disclosed. While two authors are affiliated with Aceso Global Health Consultants Ltd, which is a private company, we declare that this research project does not receive funding from Aceso Global Health Consultants. The company does not have a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. Dr. Logan Manikam is the director of the company, and Gayatri Igusti is an employee of the company. However, both of them contributed to this paper on a pro‐bono basis.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Contact tracing procedure in Indonesia (MoH Indonesia, 2020a)
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Increasing number of COVID‐19 referral Laboratories in Indonesia (National Institute of Health Research and department MoH Indonesia, 2021)
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Flow of data reporting and recording
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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