Ministry Of Health Reminds 21 Provinces That Experience A Spike In Covid-19 Cases

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) reported an increase in the trend of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia, especially seen in 21 provinces in recent weeks.

"The Ministry of Health has issued a Circular (SE) regarding Increasing Vigilance of the Spike in Covid-19 Cases," said Head of the Communication and Public Service Bureau of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi when confirmed in Jakarta, quoted from ANTARA, Thursday, December 14.

Reported through thefeerging.kemkes.go.id infection page, provinces that experienced an increase in cases include Banten, Yogyakarta, DKI Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, and North Kalimantan.

A similar situation was also recorded in the Riau Islands, Lampung, NTT, West Papua, Riau, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sumatra, and North Sumatra.

Data shows that the trend of increasing weekly Covid-19 cases nationally as of December 9, 2023, reached 554 positive cases. Since the 41st week (8-14 October 2023), there has been an increase of 134 percent per week.

On Thursday, there were 359 new cases recorded, 79 of which recovered, and a total of 1,449 active cases.

Siti Nadia Tarmizi emphasized that despite the increase in cases, there has been no significant increase in hospitalizations and deaths. However, the Ministry of Health stated the need for joint efforts to prevent transmission by the entire community.

"The Covid-19 case this time is dominated by the EG.5 sub-variant which is a derivative of the Omicron variant and is included in the category of variants of interest (VoI) or variants that have genetic mutations which are predicted to affect the clinical characteristics of the virus," he said.

He said the characteristics of these sub-variants could lead to an increase in cases and avoid immunity so that it is easier to infect but there is no change in severity.

Facing the potential spike in cases during the 2024 Christmas and New Year (Nataru) holidays, the Ministry of Health has spread SE regarding the vigilance of Covid-19 transmission. This document is addressed to various parties, including the head of the Health Office, Port Health Office, hospital director, and first-level health facilities throughout Indonesia.

The Ministry of Health also instructed SE recipients to monitor the trend of increasing cases of influenza like illness (ILI) severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), pneumonia, and suspected Covid-19 through surveillance based indicators (IBS) and surveillance based event based surveillance (EBS).

"Make sure all other health centers and health facilities in the work area are active and passive, and continue laboratory examinations using RDT-Ag Covid-19 and RT-PCR," he said.