JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has asked for the target of specimen examination in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak to reach 20 thousand per day. To achieve this target, the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) will increase laboratory working hours.
Acting Head of the Health Research and Development Agency Abdul Kadir said there were several ways to achieve the target for examining the COVID-19 specimen requested by President Jokowi. The first is laboratory strengthening.
"We are extending working hours. Because many laboratories are limited to six hours per day due to human limitations and logistical constraints. That is our strategy," said Kadir in a press conference broadcast online on the BNPB YouTube account, Tuesday, June 16.
However, this additional working hour will have other consequences such as increasing human resources. This is because it is impossible for the microbiologists who work in the 139 active laboratories to work overtime beyond their working hours.
The reason is, if the laboratory workers are forced to overtime, what happens is that they can become exhausted.
"It is impossible for my friends, biologists, clinical microbiologists to work until overtime is over six to eight hours," he said.
"Because they will be susceptible to infection and there will be fatigue there, easily infected. Besides that the results (laboratory examination, ed) are not optimal," added Kadir.
Thus, the Ministry of Health will try to increase its laboratory workers so that working hours are longer than usual and there is no need for holidays on Saturdays and Sundays.
In an effort to add laboratory workers, the Ministry of Health claims to have trained 300 laboratory workers for five days, starting on Monday, June 15.
This training, continued Kadir, is considered necessary to remember that those who come from the Task Force volunteers from the health polytechnic sector need to be specially trained.
"Because this job is not an easy job. Because we are playing with an invisible spirit, namely the virus. Therefore, friends who will be on duty in the laboratory must be given training," he explained.
In fact, there are several other ways that the Ministry of Health thinks about to strengthen laboratories in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. Including adding to the existence of the laboratory, "But it requires costs and a long time," he said.
For this reason, the Ministry of Health prefers to add workers to strengthen the existing 139 laboratories.
Kadir also said that strengthening this laboratory also needs to be supported by contact tracing in the community. Thus, the Ministry of Health hopes that the Task Force operational team in the field must be more aggressive in carrying out contact tracing.
This is because the presence of these specimens is needed so that the target of 20 thousand inspections per day can be achieved. "If you look for contact tracing it is not active. So the number of specimen intake is not sufficient," he said.
Budiman Bela, a team of laboratory and research experts from the National Task Force for the Acceleration of Handling of COVID-19, said that in order for this contact tracing to be maximized, the role of the hospital was urgently needed.
"The hospital is expected not only to play a role in handling patients but also to help with epidemiologic problems. So in the hospital there are services that go to the community or at least cooperation with the Health Office," he said.
Previously, President Joko Widodo wanted tracking the spread of COVID-19 to be even more aggressive. However, he asked that this be done not in a conventional way but using a more sophisticated method such as in New Zealand and South Korea.
"Aggressive tracking is being carried out more aggressively using the help of a communication technology system and not using conventional methods anymore," Jokowi said when opening a limited meeting on handling COVID-19 which was broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Thursday, June 4.
"As we have seen in other countries, for example in New Zealand, they use digital diaries. Then South Korea is also developing mobile GPS for data, so that tracking is better monitored," he added.
In front of his ministers, Jokowi also asked for the number of virus tests to be increased. After 10 thousand specimens were reached, Jokowi raised his target
"Previously, my target of 10 thousand had already been exceeded. I hope that the next target, in the future, is 20 thousand. This must start there," he said.
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