Uncontrollable Situation, There Is Potential For New Variant Of COVID-19 Made In Indonesia

JAKARTA - Epidemiologist from Griffith University Australia, Dicky Budiman, said that the pandemic condition in Indonesia has the potential to give rise to a new variant of COVID-19 or a variant made in Indonesia.

According to Dicky, currently Indonesia already has the criteria for a country that has a mutation of the corona virus. This is because the current pandemic is out of control, with active cases soaring that many hospitals are no longer able to accommodate COVID-19 patients.

"In my opinion, the criteria for the COVID-19 variant made in Indonesia have been met, namely an uncontrolled pandemic. The variants found in India, England, Brazil, South Africa and Peru there are due to the uncontrolled pandemic situation," said Dicky to VOI, Monday, July 12.

He viewed that the new variant of COVID-19 made in Indonesia could occur because the transmission of the virus was currently running faster. The more viruses that infect humans will affect the speed at which the virus adapts and mutates.

In fact, Dicky considers that the mutation of a typical Indonesian virus has started to exist. However, it has not been detected because the number of whole genome sequencing (WGS) examinations to detect new variants from existing cases is still small.

"Indonesia may already have (a new variant), but the problem is that its genomic surveillance is weak, small. So, maybe not all of them have been detected. I think this is most likely already there. The problem is the lack of genomic surveillance," he explained.

The emergence of a new variant of COVID-19 from Indonesia, said Dicky, could make the transmission of the virus more massive. Therefore, the government must act more massively in controlling the pandemic.

"When it comes to strategy, nothing has changed, 3T, 5M, mobility restrictions, vaccinations must continue to be improved and must be of high quality. There must be a large number of them. In addition, restrictions on state entrances are also really tightened to prevent imported cases," he explained.

It is known, the Ministry of Health noted that there were 553 cases of the new variant of COVID-19 in Indonesia as of July 6, 2021. These variants include Alpha, Beta, Delta, Eta, Iota, and Kappa types originating from abroad.

The number of variants of COVID-19 in Indonesia compared to other variants is Delta, with 436 cases. Then, the Beta variants amounted to 57 cases, Alpha 51 cases, Eta 5 cases, Kappa 2 cases, and Lota 2 cases.