Indonesia Confirms The Entry Of Subvariant Omicron BA.2.75

Illustration of a COVID-19 test at Beringharjo Market, DI Yogyakarta. (Between)

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Health (Wamenkes) Dante Saksono Harbuwono confirmed the inclusion of the Omicron BA.2.75 or Centaurus subvariant from India.

Dante said this when attending the agenda for the Submission of Presidential Decree No. 65/P 2022 concerning the Dismissal and Appointment of Interim Substitute Members of the BPJS Health Supervisory Board at the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture Building, Jakarta, Monday, July 18.

"There are three cases of BA.2.75, all simple cases, not too serious," he said.

Dante said the three cases were detected a week ago based on the results of a genome sequencing study from all patients who were confirmed positive for COVID-19 in Indonesia.

According to Dante, the characteristics of BA.2.75 based on observations in a number of infected countries have a relatively fast rate of transmission but with relatively mild severity of illness.

"It's not too heavy, because from some things we learned from several countries, the character is like Omicron. The emergency is not too big, the hospitality is not too big and the severity is not too big," he said.

Dante appealed to the public not to worry about the emergence of the BA.2.75 variant in Indonesia, because it has similar characters to BA.4 and BA.5.

The findings have also been reported by Indonesia through the influenza virus information and data sharing platform at the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) for research with other countries in the world.

Separately, Director of Post-Graduate Program at YARSI University, Prof. Tjandra Yoga Aditama, said that so far there is no certainty about the impact of BA.2.75 avoiding one's immune system.

"Only since India, the case has now spread to ten countries, the spread is quite fast which reminds us like the previous Delta variant," he said.

Based on Antara's report, BA.2.75 shows at least eight additional mutations of BA.5 which are now widely available in Indonesia, mainly the effect of evading immunity which is now present.

Tjandra said BA.2.75 was included in the monitoring of the World Health Organization (WHO). "All these developments make us need to be vigilant, both indoors and outdoors wearing a mask is still a must," he said.