Another COVID-19 Cluster Appears At The Cilawu Garut Islamic Boarding School, A Total Of 73 Santri Exposed

ILLUSTRATION/PIXABAY

GARUT - The Garut COVID-19 Handling Task Force said positive cases of COVID-19 from a cluster of Islamic boarding schools in Garut Regency, West Java re-emerged. There are 73 students exposed to the new Coronavirus.

"All students, there is a possibility that it will increase, because when tested for antigens they may not be detected", said Head of the Disease Prevention and Control (P2P) Division of the Garut Regency Health Office, Asep Surachman, to reporters quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 25.

Asep said the case of the COVID-19 cluster of Islamic boarding schools in the Cilawu Sub-district was discovered after the students started to return to carry out teaching and learning activities at the pesantren.

The boarding school health team said Asep, had checked the health conditions of all students, and all of them were declared healthy along with a certificate of negative COVID-19 test results.

However, after two days at the boarding school, continued Asep, several students complained of a loss of smell, then 100 people were medically examined and found to be positive.

Then the examination was added up to 500 people. Finally, it was discovered that 73 people tested positive for COVID-19.

"Initially 400 people entered, after two days of admission, all of them were checked, there were complaints of loss of smell, an antigen test was immediately carried out, which turned out to be positive, automatically chased down who had close contact with the positive, many were found", said Asep.

Those who were exposed to COVID-19, mostly male students with mild symptoms, then underwent independent isolation in Islamic boarding schools.

However, the Garut COVID-19 Task Force asked that all students who were positive for COVID-19 were asked to undergo medical treatment in centralized isolation of flats and Islamic Centers so that they were monitored and not spread more widely.

"Initially, they were self-isolating in Islamic boarding schools, but the police chief asked them to put all of them into centralized isolation to reduce the risk because there are many people in Islamic boarding schools", said Asep.

Currently, some of the students are gradually healthy, some are allowed to go home after being tested negative for COVID-19.

Regarding the origin of the infection at the Islamic boarding school, Asep stated that it was difficult to determine where it started because students came from various regions, as well as teachers and employees who often went in and out of the pesantren environment.

"The name pesantren is multi-regional, there are many possibilities, or because the employees themselves go in and out, the teachers come in and out", he said.