Update On COVID-19 As Of April 15: Government Speeds Up PCR Examination

Spokesperson for the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Achmad Yurianto (Photo: Twitter @ aw3126)

JAKARTA - The central government through the Spokesperson for the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Achmad Yurianto (Yuri) explained the development of the handling of the corona virus or COVID-19 as of April 15. At least, there were 297 new positive cases found and a total of 5,136 patients.

Then, for cured cases, there were also an additional 20 people, which if counted nationally was 446 patients.

Meanwhile, for cases of death, the increase that occurred was quite low, with a total of 10 people. Thus, a total of 469 patients were declared dead due to COVID-19.

For the addition of positive cases, DKI Jakarta is still the first contributor with 139 people. Meanwhile, most cases of recovered patients occurred in South Sulawesi, with 9 patients. Finally, most cases of death occurred in East Java with 4 patients.

The government is increasingly looking for or tracing contact tracing from positive patients by examining 10 thousand people per day with the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. This is done by activating dozens of laboratories throughout Indonesia. Thus, the capacity and inspection will be greater and more efficient.

"We must aim for the target of conducting 10,000 realtime PCR tests per day, by activating 78 laboratories from the previous 32 laboratories," said Yuri at Graha BNPB, Jakarta, Wednesday, April 15.

Laboratory activation is supported by the procurement of tools or reagents and human resources from volunteers. Currently, tools or reagents have been imported in large quantities and will soon be distributed to all laboratories for specimen examination.

"We have brought in another 150 thousand PCR reagents, and this will be distributed immediately to laboratories that have become networks for testing COVID-19," said Yuri.

Infographic Update on the acceleration of handling COVID-19 in Indonesia as of April 15 2020 at 12.00 WIB. # UniteLawanCovid19 pic.twitter.com/RXUDy0IvGm

- BNPB Indonesia (@BNPB_Indonesia) April 15, 2020

Based on available data, around 36,000 specimens have been examined by the PCR method. The sample comes from hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients throughout Indonesia.

"This sample comes from 196 regencies and cities throughout Indonesia that are currently treating COVID-19 patients. There are more than 800 private hospitals owned by the central government, regional government owned by BUMN, TNI and Polri, which have provided COVID-19 pandemic care services -19, "said Yuri.