INDONESIA has received 200 ventilators, from the United States and Australia, to be used for Covid-19 patients who are hospitalised.
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno LP Marsudi said both nations sent 100 ventilators each through separate partnerships with Indonesia, according to The Jakarta Post.
"All of (the ventilators) will be given to the head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, as the leader of our national Covid-19 task force," she said.
Retno said the contribution from the US, which arrived here on Wednesday, was the first shipment of 1,000 ventilators promised.
"On July 21, support and partnership (supplies) from the Australian government in the form of 100 ventilators arrived in Jakarta," she added in a press briefing on Thursday.
The national Covid-19 task force previously said that as of April, all of the country's 34 provinces lacked the minimum amount of ventilators in hospitals.
In June, Indonesia received five ventilators jointly procured by the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organisation and the International Organisation for Migration. The five were the first shipment of an expected 33 ventilators.
In partnership with the ministry, several universities have also produced additional ventilators locally to assist and support the nation in facing the pandemic.
The University of Indonesia, for example, gave the first five ventilators it produced to the national Covid-19 task force in late June and plans to produce 300 more to be donated to hospitals.
The Research and Technology Ministry and the National Research and Innovation Agency announced in early June that Indonesia would produce 100 to 300 ventilators with state-owned weapons manufacturer Pindad, hospital equipment maker PT Poly Jaya Medikal, electronics manufacturer PT LEN and automotive holding company Dharma Group, among other companies.
The Health Ministry announced 1,906 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 93,657.
According to the data released by the ministry on Thursday, 117 more people have died of the disease, bringing the death toll to 4,576.