Ministry Of Health Increases Alertness To Face The Risk Of Mysterious Pneumonia Which Lands China

ILLUSTRATION OF DOC BETWEEN

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health is making a number of efforts to increase vigilance to deal with the risk of transmitting a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that attacks thousands of Chinese people.

"We usually do this vigilance at the entrance through the Port Health Office, especially people with flu symptoms, then we educate. Then if it gets heavier, we come to health service facilities," said Head of the Communication and Public Service Bureau of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, November 28.

Nadia said another effort to increase vigilance was to supervise foodstuffs for live products. In addition, the Ministry of Health also has a surveillance system called Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and a Sovereign Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI).

The ILI and SARI surveillance, he said, was carried out at the First Level Health Facility (FKTP) such as the Puskesmas to monitor symptoms that resemble influenza. This was done because the pneumonia outbreak was triggered by the Mycoplasma bacteria, which resulted in symptoms similar to influenza, but not influenza because the disease was only caused by the virus.

"This should be if a sick person is influenza, he recovers himself and does not need to be treated to the fullest. That's why we have SARI to monitor influenza cases which suddenly become severe or he becomes severe symptoms," he said.

If there is such a case, Nadia explained that the local Health Office will take samples for genome sequencing examination to review whether the disease is caused by Mycoplasma bacteria or other bacteria/viruses.

In addition, vigilance regarding drugs is also carried out. He confirmed that drugs to treat Mycopalasma bacteria are available in Indonesia.

"Until now, if we have Mycoplasma, the medicine is in Indonesia, so we don't need (import). This is not a new disease, so it's just a matter of determining whether the diagnostic is Mycoplasma or not," he said.

Efforts to increase awareness, said Nadia, are also in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).

For this reason, in order to increase vigilance to run optimally, he appealed to the public to always wash their hands with running water, maintain a Clean and Healthy Lifestyle (PHBS), and wear masks if they feel unwell.