Ministry Of Health Calls The Distribution Of The Delta Variant To Almost All Provinces

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said that the transmission of the Delta type of COVID-19 had spread to almost all provinces in Indonesia.

Because, the Ministry of Health noted that this mutation of the virus from India had dominated 86 percent of all specimens of COVID-19 cases examined using the whole genome sequencing (WGS) method.

"This Delta variant has dominated 86 percent of the specimens sequenced in the last 60 days, originating from 24 provinces. So, it can be said that this distribution is almost evenly distributed in Indonesia," said Nadia in a virtual press conference, Wednesday, July 28.

Nadia said the spread of the Delta variant in Indonesia is a concern for the government because it can increase the risk of death in COVID-19 cases. This can be seen in the increase in case fatality rates that have occurred in recent times.

"This certainly becomes our common concern that the potential for transmission in the community due to this variant is very high and is one of the factors in increasing mortality," he said.

Meanwhile, as of July 28, the Ministry of Health's Balitbangkes has reported 3,651 sepuencing results in the global database, with accelerations that have been carried out since early January 2021.

To date, Indonesia has reported 3 Variants of Concern (VoC) of COVID-19 which are currently registered in the global database, namely the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants.

"For the Delta variant, which is currently the concern of many countries due to its high transmission rate, and Indonesia has reported 1,019 Variants of Concern from 3,647 samples that have been examined," he said.