Jakarta (ANTARA) - Spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccination of the Indonesian Health Ministry, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated that 47 of the total 145 cases of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant that causes COVID-19 and found in Indonesia had come from abroad.
"There are 47 imported cases and 98 local cases," the spokesperson noted via a text message to ANTARA in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Tarmizi remarked that as of Sunday (June 13), out of a total of 1,989 sequences examined, 145 Variants of Concern (VoC) sequences were detected that were believed to be more virulent and spread more rapidly, thereby making the patient’s condition worse after falling ill.
A total of 36 cases detected in Indonesia were of B117 (Alfa), five cases of B1351 (Beta), and 104 cases of B1617.2 (Delta).
Currently, the cases are spreading in several areas in Indonesia. The highest number of cases were recorded in Brebes, Cilacap, and Kudus, Central Java Province, comprising 75 cases of the Delta variant and one case of the Alpha variant.
Apart from Central Java, Tarmizi noted that DKI Jakarta also recorded the maximum number of cases, each with 24 cases of Alfa variant, four cases of Beta, and 20 cases of Delta.
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On a separate occasion, Director of Infectious Diseases of WHO Southeast Asia for the 2018-2020 period, Tjandra Yoga Aditama, stated that the Delta variant had the characteristics of rapid transmission.
"In the UK, 42,323 cases of the Delta variant were detected, up 70 percent from the previous week, or an increase of 29,892 cases in just one week. A very large increase," he pointed out.
Aditama, the professor of lung at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, noted that the latest UK data indicated that over 90 percent of the new COVID-19 cases in the country are currently the Delta variant that replaces the Alfa variant, dominant in the UK.
"If this pattern were to also occur in our country, then of course, the burden will be huge," he stated.
He remarked that the Delta variant in the UK was 60 percent more contagious than the Alfa variant.
"The doubling time ranges from 4.5 to 11.5 days. It would be good if there was also data on how much of a doubling of the Delta variant currently exists in our country, including of this latest report from Kudus," he noted.
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