Up to 10,000 airline passengers may have been tested for coronavirus with reused nasal swabs in a scam that netted thousands of dollars for the perpetrators, according to Indonesian police. Five employees for major Indonesian pharmaceutical company Kimia Farma were arrested on April 27 for allegedly washing and repackaging rapid antigen nasal swab kits, and using them on passengers at the Kualanamu International Airport in Medan, North Sumatra. Indonesia requires all passengers to provide a negative coronavirus test before they board a domestic flight, and the company sells the test kits in Medan airport. The scam had been ongoing for about four months, police said.
Govt guarantees vaccine stocks for Papua before PON National Games 8 hours ago
Head of the Papua Sports and Youth Office Alexander Kapisa (ANTARA News Papua/Hendrina Dian Kandipi) Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia s Health Ministry has secured the availability of COVID-19 vaccine doses in Papua Province before this year s PON National Games, according to a government official. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has convinced us that the vaccine stocks for Papua are available, Head of the Papua Sports and Youth Office Alexander Kapisa stated.
President Joko Widodo had, in fact, highlighted the importance of vaccination in Papua before the PON National Games are convened from Oct 2 to Oct 15, 2021, according to the office head.
We detected a very positive development over the past two months. The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Indonesia continued to decline heavily, a trend that began at the very start of February 2021. While on 1 February 2021, a total of 10,994 new COVID-19 infections were found, this number has almost halved as we enter April 2021 (see the chart below).
This trend is also confirmed by data taken from the Wisma Atlet apartment complex in Central Jakarta. This complex, which was turned into an emergency hospital early in 2020, has almost 6,000 beds available to treat COVID-19 patients. While in late-February 2021 the occupancy rate of Wisma Atlet was slightly over 80 percent, the rate had declined to 38.3 percent in late-March 2021. However, based on anecdotal evidence, ‘conventional hospitals’ in Indonesia do not see such a drastic decrease in COVID-19 patients. An explanation could be that hospitals have limited capacity to treat patients (contrary to the thousands of bed
Indonesian-made Covid-19 breathalyser sensitivity comparable to RT-PCR
Train passengers carried out a Covid-19 detection test with the GeNose C19 screening at Pasar Turi Station, Surabaya, February 15, 2021.
ANTARA FOTO/Didik Suhartono/rwaYet, testing capacity remains the foremost determinant of a country’s success in containing the virus. Lack of testing can paralyse any plan to curb the outbreak, as tracing and isolating Covid-19 suspects can only be done as much as the tests tell us.
We can see this in the high positivity rates of countries with lower testing capacity relative to their population size. While WHO has capped a maximum positivity rate at 5%, countries like Indonesia, Ukraine, Mexico, as well as several South American and African countries could hardly go below 15%. This is essentially the problem of low testing capacity.
Indonesia’s ban on alcohol could come with its own health risks
In places where alcohol is prohibited or seen as controversial, there are higher incidents of methanol poisoning, global data shows. A total ban on alcohol may increase incidents of smuggling and bribery. | Adek Berry / AFP
The Indonesian House of Representatives plans to draft a bill that will criminalise the activities of producing, selling and buying, distributing, drinking and storing alcoholic beverages.
Public health risks
A total alcohol restriction could bring its own serious risk since more people could experience ill health or could die from methanol poisoning, a common consequence of the production of illicit and informally produced alcohol that does not meet quality and safety standards.