Ministry Of Health: Omicron Findings In Papua Evidence Of Widespread Infection

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JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) stated that the finding of the Omicron case in Papua Province is evidence of infection due to the new variant being increasingly widespread in Indonesia.

"Today we are announcing it for Papua, because Papua also has local transmission," said Spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccination at the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi in a National Webinar entitled "Sector of Social Welfare of DPP PKS" quoted by Antara, Saturday, February 5.

Nadia said previously that Omicron cases had been found in the provinces of DKI Jakarta, Banten, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases of Omicron from December 15, 2021 to February 4, 2022, has reached 3,914 cases.

With details of transmissions that occurred to foreign travelers, there were 1,815 cases, 1,756 cases of local transmission and 343 cases that are still in the verification stage.

According to Nadia, the 343 cases are still in the verification stage because the source of the infection is not yet known.

“Which is still field verification, it means that this is also most likely a local transmission. Because what we get is not from a sample of travellers," he said.

The large number of cases of Omicron transmission, he said, showed that there had been a change in the proportion of transmission cases, which was originally dominated by foreign travelers, shifted to local transmission.

On average, people who are positive for the Omicron variant are people who have received a complete dose of COVID-19 vaccination and have passed the S-gene Target Failure (SGTF) test.

"The proportion has begun to shift to higher local transmissions from foreign travel agents," said Nadia.