Jokowi Asks To Re-Act Care To Protect Early Detection To Prevent Mpox Importation

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) (Doc: State Secretariat)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has decided to reactivate the early detection system for infectious diseases to prevent the importation of Mpox disease in the country.

This was conveyed by Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin after attending a limited meeting with President Jokowi at the Jakarta Presidential Palace complex, Tuesday.

"Mr. President has decided earlier, we will reactivate the Electronic Surveillance Card. It used to be known as Pedulilindungi," Budi said as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, August 27.

Budi said the effort was a surveillance strategy pursued by the government in responding to the emergence of the latest Mpox strain called 1B, because it was more at risk of being deadly than its predecessor strain, 2B.

"Strain 1B has higher facilities than the previous one, which is in Indonesia, in Asia, generally 2B. So apparently there are more concerns, because of the new variant whose fatality is close to 10 percent compared to the old variant which is 0.1 percent," he said.

The Electronic Surveillance Card method, said Budi, is the same as the PeduliLindungi Application which was previously implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Everyone who comes from abroad, because Budi, will scan the bar code or QR code, which records travel history, with yellow, green, and red notifications.

"If it's green, you don't have to do anything about it. If it's yellow, we'll see the temperature, if it turns out to be high and there's a rash, PCR will take it later," he said.

The Ministry of Health has prepared two PCR machines that can detect symptoms of Mpox 30-40 minutes, each stored in Jakarta, Cengkareng, and Bali.

"The location was chosen, because there will be an Asia-Africa Leaders Meeting in Indonesia. So, if we identify anyone who has come in Africa, the temperature is immediately taken, immediately in a short time you can see if he is positive or not," he said.

If the traveler is tested positive, said Budi, he will be immediately taken to an isolation facility available at the hospital.

"Because our medicines have been prepared for antivirals, have been sent to Bali, some are in Jakarta and we have prepared all reagents for PCR, reagents for Whole Genome Sequencing," he said.