OTG Until Moderate Symptoms Of COVID-19 Recover For 14 Days Without Re-swab, Ministry Of Health: WHO Guidelines

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JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) has guidelines for handling COVID-19 which states that patients with mild symptoms, moderate symptoms and people without symptoms (OTG) can be declared cured after 14 days of isolation without the need for a second swab test.

Director General of Disease Prevention and Control (P2P) of the Ministry of Health, Achmad Yurianto, said that this policy was the fifth revised guideline for prevention and control of COVID-19.

This guideline is a direction from the Minister of Health, Terawan Agus Putranto, and is implemented at the regional health offices.

"The policy is in accordance with the revised 5 guidelines for the prevention and control of COVID-19 from the Ministry of Health," Yuri said when confirmed by VOI, Wednesday, September 30.

Yuri gave no guarantee that OTG cases, mild symptoms and moderate symptoms of COVID-19 would recover after undergoing quarantine for 14 days since testing positive.

However, Yuri only stated that this policy was taken from the opinion of world health experts and according to the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO).

"This refers to the opinion of experts in the world which is used as a WHO guideline," he said.

Yuri admitted that there was a stigma in the community who were still worried that OTG, mild symptoms and moderate symptoms could still transmit the corona virus to others.

To refute this, Yuri asked all parties to educate people who did not know this policy. "Just given education," he said.

In the fifth revised Ministry of Health guidelines, it was stated that confirmation cases without symptoms (asymptomatic) were not subject to follow-up RT-PCR examinations.

They are declared to have finished isolation if they have undergone independent isolation for 10 days from the time the specimen was confirmed for the confirmation diagnosis.

Likewise with confirmed cases with mild and moderate symptoms, no follow-up RT-PCR examination was performed.

Patients with symptoms that are declared completed isolation must be counted 10 days from the onset date plus at least 3 days after no longer showing symptoms of fever and respiratory distress.

Furthermore, confirmed cases with severe or critical symptoms who were admitted to the hospital were declared to have finished isolation if they had a negative RT-PCR follow-up examination plus at least 3 days showed no symptoms of fever and respiratory problems.

In the event that the follow-up RT-PCR examination cannot be carried out, severe symptomatic patients who have undergone isolation for 10 days since onset, plus at least 3 days no longer show symptoms of fever and respiratory problems, are declared complete isolation, and can be treated for non-isolation or sent home.