JAKARTA - The government has detected thousands of cases of COVID-19 variant BA.2 in Indonesia since some time ago. Now, the corona virus, dubbed the "stealth" Omicron, has spread to 19 provinces.

From data owned by the Ministry of Health, the provinces that have detected the "stealth" Omicron case are Aceh, North Sumatra, Riau Islands, Jambi, Bengkulu, Lampung, Banten, DKI Jakarta, West Java.

Then Central Java, DI Yogyakarta, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, Central Kalimantan, East Sentence, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and Gorontalo.

Secretary of the Directorate General of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, revealed that this finding was based on the results of the whole genome sequencing (WGS) examination of positive confirmed cases.

"A province that has not been detected can mean that the region has not sent samples for sequencing or that it has not been detected. Data can change at any time with additional sequences," said Nadia in a short message, Wednesday, March 16.

Meanwhile, the Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito said the Omicron BA.2 subvariant had been detected as many as 8,302 cases.

"Based on data from GISAID on March 13, since the beginning of 2022, an increase in Omicron BA.2 has begun and the number has reached 8,302 sequences," said Wiku.

It is known that the "stealth" Omicron subvariant was detected for the first time in Indonesia on January 27. The cause of the Omicron BA.2 subvariance is referred to as the stealth Omicron because it has a genetic trait that makes the SGTF PCR test difficult to identify this is one type of Omicron variant.

This BA.2 variant is known to be more contagious and also increases in severity. However, the current pattern of the spread of COVID-19 Omicron in Indonesia is still dominated by the BA.1 subvariant.


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