Hnadful of cases with British Covid variant found in Indonesia

Indonesian officials say that the country needs ‘better management’ of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Medics prepare to administer the coronavirus vaccine at Bali’s Nusa Dua. Picture: AFP

Indonesian officials say the country needs “better management” of the pandemic after detecting two coronavirus patients carrying the more infectious mutation originating from the UK.

On Tuesday, Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono said the recent discovery of the B117 variant in local cases “poses a challenge” after a year of living with the pandemic.

“I received this information last night … this means we will face this pandemic with a higher level of difficulty,” he said.

Experts are urging the government to quickly isolate close contacts of the two cases carrying the mutated virus to prevent an uncontrolled spread of the variant that is said to be 70 per cent more infectious than the original virus found in Wuhan.

“We need to increase our safeguards and be more cautious because the UK variant transmits very quickly,” said Gunadi, head of the genetics working group at Gadjah Mada University.

Although the variant isn’t known to be deadlier, Professor Gunadi said it could lead to a spike in the number of cases if it spread.

“The patients with this virus mutation and their close contacts must be completely isolated to ensure that this variant doesn’t cause a local outbreak.”

Indonesia credits increased testing for the decline in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and hospitalised patients since last month.

Last month the Health Ministry authorised the use of antigen tests, which are cheaper and faster than PCR swab tests, as a COVID-19 screening method.

“Mass rapid antigen will accelerate detection and reduce the rate of transmissions,” a ministry spokesperson said. “We will find positive cases earlier, so that the handling of the pandemic will be better.”

Dr Saksono said the two cases with the B117 mutation were detected after screening 462 whole genome sequences.

“This will create new challenges for us in the future to develop research more quickly,” he said.

“We need better management and more analytical epidemiological studies because the mutation process is already around us.”