TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Keeping your hands clean is the main method to prevent getting infected with the novel coronavirus, a.k.a the 2019-nCov. Head of the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, Amin Soebandrio, making sure to wash hands before touching other parts of the body is important, as it will prevent direct contact to the virus.

In a meeting with a number of ministers and other relevant officials, Amin explained that the coronavirus cannot live long outside its cell. "The Coronavirus cannot live outside dry cells, only for a day. [To prevent it from] entering the body, it is important to wash hands," he said.

Amin asserted that until now there has not been a confirmed case of coronavirus infection in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government has implemented various policies to prevent the Coronavirus from spreading to the country, including temporary closing flights from and to mainland China since February 5. The government has also imposed restrictions on all new arrivals from mainland China, and passengers who had spent the last 14 days there are not permitted to enter or transit in Indonesia.

The government has also temporarily stopped giving non-visa and visa-on-arrival activities to travelers from mainland China, and asked Indonesians not to travel there for the time being.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of February 5, 2020, there were 24,554 cases of acute respiratory illness due to new coronavirus infections, 24,363 of which in China.

Outside China, 191 cases of the infection were reported in 24 countries, one resulted in death. To prevent the transmission of the outbreak, the Chinese government has isolated a number of cities as part of quarantine measures and imposed travel bans on nearly 10 million residents in several provinces.

Antara