BRIN Researchers Remind About Contact Tracing Ability To Face Omicron Variants

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

JAKARTA - A researcher at the Eijkman Research Center for Molecular Biology at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Amin Soebandrio, reminded us about the ability to trace contacts to find more cases of infection in the community, especially for the Omicron variant.

"We know that according to the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), if there is one case, around 30 people must be traced, maybe it hasn't arrived there yet, but quite a lot has been done for tracing it", Amin said, in Jakarta, Monday, January 10.

Amin said that with the transmission of the Omicron variant which is classified as local transmission, the 3T (testing, contact tracing, treatment) must be further strengthened because people infected with Omicron can be asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms.

In addition, the transmission of the Omicron variant was higher than the Delta variant. The Omicron variant causes a higher risk of COVID-19 transmission in the household than in the Delta. One case of Delta infection alone can infect 6-8 people.

Omicron is also capable of causing re-infection in people already infected with COVID-19.

For this reason, increasing contact tracing in the community must continue to be carried out to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19.

Amin said that currently in Indonesia, contact tracing capabilities vary widely from case to case, but it has not yet reached the standard set by WHO, namely 30 people are tracked per case of COVID-19 infection.

Even so, according to him, the government has made efforts to increase the capacity of contact tracing and testing in the country, which is getting better from time to time.

"Currently about Omicron, the government's efforts (for contact tracing) are much better than in the past", Amin said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing and testing capacity must be further enhanced because they play an important role in helping to find cases so that they can break the chain of transmission of COVID-19.

When cases of COVID-19 infection are found in the community, health interventions can be carried out in the form of isolation and treatment to prevent the spread of transmission to other people.

"If it is known who the contact is, then the contact must also be checked, if it is positive, he will be tested again, so it will be a chain", said Amin.