COVID-19 Task Force Talks of Indonesian-made PCR Reagents
Translator
Dewi Elvia Muthiariny
Editor
Laila Afifa
Kamis, 23 April 2020 16:28 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The expert team head of the National COVID-19 Mitigation Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, revealed that Indonesia was striving to produce reagents needed to conduct the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests.
According to Wiku, the production aimed at fulfilling the country’s high demand for massive rapid tests. Currently, Indonesia still relies on imported PCR reagents, including 50,000 kits from South Korea that arrived a few days ago.
“[It] has now entered the first production trial,” said Wiku in a press briefing today, April 23.
He reiterated that the production was carried out by the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education or the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and universities.
With the production, the government expected to conduct 10,000 PCR tests per day in a bid to accelerate the examination of COVID-19 specimens, Wiku added.
Other than from Korea, the government through SOE Ministry also brought in 150,000 PCR test kits from Swiss multinational healthcare company Roche, including two automatic RNA extractors and 18 PCR light cycle detectors.
One automatic RNA could examine 1,000 specimens per day, while one PCR detector could test 500 specimens per day.
EGI ADYATAMA
