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INDONESIA’S Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin asked the government to tighten the entrance to the country to prevent the entry of the Omicron variant due to the high increase in overseas travelers.
“In the past week, there has been a fairly high increase in foreign travelers at all entrances,” Budi said at the implementation of restrictions on community activities (PPKM) conference which was followed online in Jakarta, Monday (12/20).
Budi said the increase in the number of travelers occurred at all entrances to the country, both land, sea and air.
However, after observing all the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and the results of the genome sequencing tests, it appears that the positivity rate of COVID-19 via land and sea is much higher than the entrance via air.
Therefore, in order to tighten state entrances from various routes, his party will ask for assistance from the Indonesia National Army (TNI) and Indonesia National Police (Polri) as well as the Ministry of Home Affairs to strengthen the surveillance and quarantine process at every existing entrance.
In addition to intensifying the whole genome sequencing (WGS) test, his party also carried out the S-gene target failure (SGTF) test which can detect COVID-19 much faster, although it cannot detect Omicron 100%.
“Because the PCR test with SGTF functions as a marker, so it’s not 100% unlike WGS. However, it is likely to be able to detect Omicron within four to six hours. Meanwhile, WGS takes three to five days,” he concluded. [antaranews/photo special]
