Minister Of Health, Budi Gunadi: Most Of The COVID-19 Cases In Indonesia Now Variant Omicron

JAKARTA - Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said that most of the current COVID-19 cases in the country are caused by the Omicron variant. This was conveyed when he mentioned the PCR test with the special reagent for the new variant.

"Special reagents are indeed needed for identification of Omicron variants, but now because most of them are Omicron, I think most of them are no longer needed", Budi said in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, February 7.

Budi said the test using Omicron's special reagent, is currently focused on tracing its spread.

"We just need to see what the detection is like", said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs.

Furthermore, Budi also spoke about the results of the PCR test. He reminded the results of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based COVID-19 test was indeed not perfect.

The sensitivity, he continued, was even in the range of 95-99 percent. "Even 500 thousand tests a day had one percent around 5,000 misses", he said.

For this reason, the government then allowed comparison tests for patients who tested positive for COVID-19. Especially those who just came from abroad.

As long as they pay the fees themselves and are carried out in a laboratory that has been accredited by the Ministry of Health.

"So there is no 100 percent accurate PCR. So if you are in doubt, you can take a comparative test", concluded Budi.