Nursing Rates In Several Countries Rise Due To BA.2 Subvariance

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said the Omicron BA.2 subvariant contributed to increasing the rate of patient care in a number of countries.

"Some of our countries have observed and studied the rate of transmission, such as in Hong Kong, South Korea, England, where we know that there is an increase in treatment cases due to an increase in the new variant of Omicron, namely the BA.2 subvariant," said Siti Nadia Tarmizi in a virtual press conference attended by Zoom. in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Tuesday, March 15.

Nadia said Indonesia was aware of the potential spike in cases affected by the BA.2 subvariance following the number of cases now detected in the country, reaching 363 cases since January 2022.

Nadia, who also serves as Secretary of Public Health of the Indonesian Ministry of Health, said the characteristics of BA.2 have a high transmission rate or are more quickly transmitted and have a severity level if someone is infected.

Symptoms that generally occur are similar to the BA.1 subvariant which now dominates the distribution of the virus in Indonesia. "From the genome sequencing examination that we have carried out since January, cases of BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, and BA.11 totaled 8,302 cases," she said.

Nadia said the COVID-19 vaccine circulating in Indonesia was confirmed to be still effective in preventing all Omicron subvariants.

"In principle, completing the two-dose vaccination and of course, the addition of a third or booster dose of vaccine will increase our defenses, including against the Omicron subvariant," she said.

In the same event, the President Director of RSPI Sulianti Saroso Mohammad Syahril said the symptoms caused by the BA.2 subvariant were no more severe than Delta.

"So, it's true that for BA.2 we didn't find any more severe symptoms than Delta," he said.

From data in Indonesia, said Syahrir, patients who died from COVID-19 were divided into three age groups, namely 60 years and over, comorbid diabetes, heart to kidney failure, and incomplete vaccines.