Thursday, April 27, 2023, the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) Universitas Indonesia (UI) held the 3rd Public Lecture for the Global Health Course with the theme “Global Health and Anticipating Future Pandemics”. This public lecture is intended for 4th Semester bachelor’s degree and 2nd Semester Extension students of FPH UI. The event was opened with remarks by the Rector of the Universitas Indonesia, Prof. Ari Kuncoro, S.E., M.A., Ph.D. “The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things in the world. We also learn from the pandemic the importance of anticipating disasters. As a future leader who will be responsible for the health of the Indonesian people, this is very important to study,” said Prof. Ari in his speech.
The Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir. Budi Gunadi Sadikin, CHFC., CLU., was present as the first speaker. Ir. Budi Gunadi talked a lot about the policies and steps taken by the government in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. “There are two strategies the government is pursuing, namely identifying our ‘enemy’ and understanding how strong our defenses are. Enemy identification can be done by testing and research, while how strong a country’s defense is can be seen from the level of antibodies in the population,” said Ir. Budi Gunadi. The existence of the COVID-19 pandemic has also made the government aware that the health service system in Indonesia is not good enough. Therefore, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia formulated 6 pillars of health transformation consisting of transformation of primary services, transformation of referral services, transformation of the health security system, transformation of the health financing system, transformation of health human resources, and transformation of health technology.
Doctor Tamara Curtin Niemi, Emergency Preparedness Technical Officer at WHO Indonesia, then explained the social and economic costs that must be faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from 90% of health systems worldwide being disrupted, economic losses estimated at 12 trillion dollars, reductions of up to 30% in clean and renewable energy investments, to an increase of 135 million poor people in throughout the world.” To avoid losses like this in the future, there are 3 pillars of health emergency preparedness, responses, and resilience, namely the government pillar, system pillar, and financing pillar. The sooner the disease is detected, the sooner steps can be taken to overcome it,” said Dr. Tamara.
Present as the last speaker, Prof. dr. Tjandra Yoga Aditama, Sp.P(K), M.A.R.S., DTM&H., DTCE., FISR., as Postgraduate Director of Yarsi University. “COVID-19 is not the first pandemic to occur in the world, but we are still not ready for it. We have to do better for the world of health so that in the next 10 years, we won’t feel the same regrets,” said Prof. Tjandra. According to Prof. Tjandra, a true pandemic cannot be predicted. Therefore, it is necessary to update the health architecture on a global scale.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a hard slap that contains many lessons for the world of health. It is hoped that the Public Lecture on Global Health can add to the knowledge of FPH UI students regarding handling pandemics so that in the future they will be better prepared if they have to face other pandemics. (WR)