INDONESIA is bracing for a spike in Covid-19 cases as the health authorities allowed 12 laboratories to conduct tests across the country.
Health Ministry disease control and prevention director-general Achmad Yurianto said the government authorisation was approved on Tuesday, according to The Jakarta Post.
“We acknowledge that there might be a sharp increase in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases since we have been very active in conducting (contact) tracing and people have become more aware about the disease.”
Achmad said authorities would continue to track down people who may have been exposed to the disease.
The government had conducted tests on more than 2,300 samples from patients suspected of being infected with the coronavirus.
Previously, the Covid-19 tests were conducted by the Health Research and Development Agency here, since it was the only laboratory authorised by the government. Since the approval was given, the government had received specimens from six cases at Airlangga University, Sur-abaya, East Java.
Achmad said that other authorised laboratories, such as the Eijkman Institute for Microbiology here and the Health Ministry’s Environmental Health and Disease Control Centre in 10 cities across Indonesia, would also send their results to the government.
“We will shorten the procedure for delivering specimens from hospitals to laboratories,” he said, without elaborating about the procedure.
Achmad urged the public to visit hospitals if they had been in contact with Covid-19 patients, and advised then not to panic when the government announces a staggering increase in confirmed cases of the disease in the upcoming days.
Several districts in the country have postponed the national exam for vocational high schools and ordered students to study from home amid the government’s call for people to practise social distancing to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Six provinces have postponed the national exam for vocational high schools, initially slated to be held from Monday to Thursday.
Five regions — Jakarta, Banten, West Java, Central Java, Bali and Riau — have completely postponed the exams. East Kalimantan held the first day of exams on Monday but halted the remaining days.
However, nearly 7,600 of 13,691 vocational high schools in 28 other provinces went ahead with the national exam as scheduled, National Education Standardisation Agency head Abdul Mu’ti said.
“As many as 752,911 out of 1,546,932 vocational high school students (across the country) participated in the national exam today (yesterday).”
As for the decision on the national exam for regular senior high schools, scheduled to be held from March 30 to April 2, it would depend on the development of the situation, Abdul said. Several regional administrations have shut schools and encouraged students to study at home, such as in Jakarta, Central Java’s Surakarta and West Java’s Bandung.
On Tuesday afternoon, Indonesia announced 38 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed infections in the country to 172.
The death toll remains at five while nine have recovered from the disease.