UI Epidemiologist: Variant Of COVID-19 Made In Indonesia Detected Since December 2020, But...

Chairman of PB IDI Daeng Faqih (second left) and epidemiologist Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono (center) (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - University of Indonesia (UI) Epidemiologist Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono said the local Indonesian variant for the corona virus that causes COVID-19 had been identified since December 2020.

"The local Indonesian variant has existed since December 2020, the local variant has been identified, it has been reported," Yunis said when contacted in Jakarta quoted from Antara, Wednesday, July 28.

However, the local variant is not a new variant because it is unchanged and has a low transmission rate.

The local variant was found through genomic surveillance or the result of whole genome sequencing.

Countries carry out genomic surveillance and report the results to the World Health Organization, and the World Health Organization which will assess a particular variant can be categorized as a new variant.

Yunis said virus variants could develop at any time without waiting for the prevalence of COVID-19 to increase. The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is relatively easy to mutate and so far there have been 11 variants.

Of the 11 variants, there are variants that are worrying or categorized as variants of concern, namely alpha from England, beta from South Africa, gamma from Brazil, and delta from India until now.

A variant is identified as a variant of concern if it is related to three things, namely rapid transmission, very different clinical symptoms, not only attacking the respiratory system, and affecting the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Variants are the result of mutations of the original virus where mutations can occur in for example one gene, two genes and three genes.

The alpha variant has a single gene mutation, and the mutated gene is a contagion gene.

The delta variant mutates two genes, namely the transmission gene and the adaptation gene, which transmits faster than the alpha variant, and can even adapt to antibodies produced by the body either naturally due to infection with COVID-19 or from vaccination. The existence of these new properties makes alpha and delta variants as new variants.

Yunis said that in the future mutations in the virus are still possible. However, to find out whether there is a new phenotype, it is necessary to continue to carry out genomic surveillance or sequencing of the viral genome.

Yunis said Indonesia had anticipated to track virus mutations by conducting genomic surveillance.

However, Indonesia is a large country so not all districts have the capacity to sequencing the same viral genome. Therefore, under these conditions, at least areas with high rates of transmission and cases of COVID-19 are of concern.