Check Out, 4 Strategies Of The Minister Of Health To Face The Potential Return Of The COVID-19 Pandemic

Murals in Indonesia to encourage others in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Between)

JAKARTA - Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin revealed four strategies that Indonesia will face if the COVID-19 pandemic strikes again.

The Minister of Health, who was a speaker in discussions regarding the latest developments in Indonesia's health at the Media Center, likened the pandemic to fighting the virus to war.

"There are three types of war that humans face. The first is war with nature. Second, war with fellow humans. And the third is war against pathogens or pandemics," he said in a statement on Friday, December 15.

Of all the wars facing humans, the fight against pathogens recorded the most deaths in the world. Budi gave an example of the Black Death pandemic that hit Europe, Asia and North Africa between 1347-1353 and is estimated to have claimed 200 million lives.

To prepare for the war against the pandemic, the Minister of Health said the first strategy that needs to be done is to prepare competent human resources.

"We need to prepare people. Health reserve personnel, just like the military. We also make digital health reserves. So we digitally record our people who have experience in dealing with disasters and who. And it can be called at any time," he said.

The second strategy is to prepare the best weapons against the pandemic, such as by completing medical equipment.

"If the defense of shootings uses weapons, the health of shootings uses injections. So if defense has a weapons factory, we (health) have a syringe factory, RnD (Research and Development), of all kinds, right," said the Minister of Health.

The next strategy against the potential for a pandemic is to increase supervision such as preparing lab PCR in 416 regencies and 98 cities throughout Indonesia. While the last strategy is to prepare the ultimate weapons ammunition such as recombinant DNA Technology and others.

"Lab is health intelligence to see where the virus comes from. We also need a Laboratory Genomic Sequencing. So if we already know our enemies who make hundreds of millions of people die from animals, we have prepared a strategy. Integrated One Health," said the Minister of Health.

As is known, the first COVID-19 cases in Indonesia were detected on March 2, 2020. On April 9, COVID-19 had spread to 34 provinces with DKI Jakarta, West Java and Central Java as the provinces most exposed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the government implement various handling policies, such as from various sectors such as Restrictions on Community Activities (PPKM), providing incentives for the community and actors, and providing vaccines so that the pandemic can be resolved and the economy is maintained.

The government's handling of the pandemic has received appreciation from many parties. One of them is from the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in June 2022 said Indonesia had good handling in COVID-19. Likewise with the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination. This was conveyed by Tedros to President Jokowi at that time.

Apart from WHO, praise came from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) who said that Indonesia is one of the best countries in suppressing infection due to SARS-CoV-2.

Based on data from the COVID-19 Task Force, as of March 19, 2023, during the three years of the pandemic, the accumulation of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia was 6,741,354 with a cure rate of 6,576,542 per yesterday. Meanwhile, the accumulated death cases reached 160,971.

As for the COVID-19 vaccination coverage, it has reached 203.8 million people who received the first injection from the target of 234.6 million people. The second dose of vaccination was 174.8 million people, and the third dose of vaccination was 65.5 million people.