Twelve Days Since The First Finding, There Are 46 Omicron Cases In Indonesia

JAKARTA - Yesterday, the government announced the addition of dozens of confirmed cases of COVID-19 B.1.1.529 or the Omicron variant in Indonesia. In accumulation, there have been 46 Omicron cases in the last 12 days since the announcement of the first case finding.

Initially, the Ministry of Health discovered the first case of Omicron on Wednesday, December 15. The patient named N who is a worker at Wisma Atlet, Kemayoran. Surprisingly, N has no travel history from abroad. Currently, N's status has been declared negative for COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health conducted a search by looking for sources within the past 14 days. The Ministry of Health traced all cases of positive Indonesian citizens at Wisma Atlet 24 November-3 December 2021. Then, an Omicron variant was found indicated in TF patients. He arrived from Nigeria on 27 November 2021.

"After tracing the cases of Indonesian citizens who were positive for COVID-19 at the Athlete House for the past 14 days, it is most likely that the index case (first case) of Omicron was an Indonesian citizen, with the initials TF, aged 21, who arrived from Nigeria on November 27, 2021," said the Head of the Bureau of Communication and Community Services, Widyawati some time ago.

The next Omicron case finding occurred on December 17th. From the results of the examination of 5 probable cases, 2 cases were found, namely Indonesian citizens from the UK and the United States who were confirmed positive for Omicron.

Then, on December 22, the Ministry of Health again recorded an additional 2 new cases of Omicron. On December 23, there were an additional 3 new cases originating from Indonesian citizens who had recently returned from Malaysia and Congo.

Furthermore, on December 24, the Ministry of Health again identified 11 additional cases of travelers from Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

Until finally, the Spokesperson for Vaccination of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi announced that there were 27 additional confirmed cases of Omicron.

Most of the cases are from international travelers. With this additional case, the total number of confirmed cases of Omicron in Indonesia has reached 46 since it was first reported.

"Based on the results of the examination of specimens by the Research and Development Agency, we again identified 27 additional Omicron cases. Currently, most of them have been quarantined at Wisma Athletes and partly at RSPI Sulianti Saroso," said Nadia on Sunday, December 26.

The findings come from the results of the whole genome sequencing (WGS) examination by the Research and Development Agency which was released on December 25, 2021.

A total of 26 cases are imported cases, including 25 Indonesian citizens who recently returned from Malaysia, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malawi, Spain, England, Turkey, and 1 foreigner from Nigeria. Meanwhile, one positive case is a health worker at the Wisma Atlet RSDC.

Nadia explained that the majority of Omicron cases detected in Indonesia came from imported cases. The Omicron case was detected when international travelers arrived in Indonesia and underwent a 10-day quarantine.

"Some cases were detected after they had spent more than three days in quarantine. This shows a 10-day quarantine is the right duration to prevent patients with Omicron from infecting others outside the quarantine facility," she said.