The Indonesian government is preparing to anticipate the entry of new variants of COVID-19 from a number of countries including B.1.1.7 from the UK, B.1.351 from South Africa, P.1 from Brazil and the double mutation variant B.1.617 in India which are thought to be more dangerous and quickly transmitted. This has raised fears of a very high spike in cases globally.
Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin in a press conference on Recent Economic Developments and PC-PEN Policies held virtually on Friday, April 23, 2021 said “The wave of cases in India was influenced by virus mutations and relaxation of health protocol enforcement. As a result, transmission occurred again with a new mutation and rose very high. This is a lesson for all of us to always be careful to observe the rate of transmission of COVID-19.”
As is known, since its discovery until now, COVID-19 continues to change and develop. Since then, Indonesia has been aggressively conducting Whole Genome Squencing (WGS) which in this way will be known more quickly the characteristics of the COVID-19 virus, so it is hoped that it can help reduce transmission rates and increase healing.
Based on data from the Indonesian Genomic Surveillance Network, from January 2020 to March 2021, 1191 SARS-CoV-2 sequences have been examined. The results found a mutation of the virus in Europe.
The Minister of Health appealed to the entire community to be more vigilant by immediately vaccinating at the nearest vaccination center and continuing to comply with health protocols. “We must always be careful, we must accelerate the vaccination program and carry out health protocols to ensure that when the variant of convern B.1.1.7 gets a bigger portion, we are ready,” said the Minister of Health.
The Minister of Health revealed, related to the surge in COVID-19 cases that occurred in India, the government has taken quick steps to anticipate the entry of this virus mutation into Indonesia by strengthening genomic surveillance at the entrance of the country both by land, sea and air and for Indonesian citizens who have visited India within the last 14 days are still allowed to return to Indonesia with the condition that they must undergo a 14-day quarantine and 2 PCR Swab Tests at the beginning and at the end of quarantine.
In addition to anticipating the spread of virus mutations, the government is now also preparing to deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases which are predicted to start increasing in a number of regions. “Since the vacation 2 weeks ago, this week on average there has been a slight increase. This is our duty together, don't repeat what happened in India. It is better for us to be vigilant from the start,” explained the Minister of Health.
The Minister of Health again urged the entire community to remember and be aware of the threat of COVID-19 to always implement the 3M health protocol in every line of life so that the trend of decreasing cases and increasing recovered cases can be maintained properly. “We are grateful that in Indonesia confirmed cases as well as those hospitalized have decreased quite a lot compared to the beginning of the year. The decline should not make us careless, we must remain vigilant by implementing health protocols according to what is applied in Micro PPKM,” he concluded.
Source: Bureau of Communication and Community Services of the Ministry of Health
