Indonesia

Terawan Agus Putranto

Minister of Health

While resisting calls to impose a lockdown, the health minister of the world’s fourth-most populous country has continued to repeat messages about prayer offering protection against coronavirus. With the nation’s total number of confirmed cases now standing at 1,414, a coalition of civil society groups, including Amnesty International Indonesia, has demanded Putranto’s resignation. The groups claim that Putranto has exhibited an “absence of sensitive, responsive and effective leadership” throughout the crisis. Much of this concern came in response to Putranto’s erroneous insistence that recovered COVID-19 patients are immune to the virus and his showcasing of such individuals at a public event — in direct contravention of his own ministry’s social distancing guidelines. Back in February Putranto slammed a study by Harvard University researchers that suggested Indonesia was downplaying its number of infections, referring to the document as “insulting.”

CV: The Indonesian Medical Association issued a recommendation to suspend Putranto in 2018 for violating medical ethics by devising and administering a controversial therapy for stroke patients. Putranto is a radiologist by profession and the first military doctor appointed to his post since the fall of Suharto’s authoritarian regime in 1998.