TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Jakarta provincial administration has claimed that the COVID-19 testing capacity, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method, in the capital has exceeded the standard prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

"We have tested 39,268 new people. If its equivalence is calculated, it equals to 3,688 new people per one million people (being tested) in a week," Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said in a statement that ANTARA received on Saturday.

The WHO has prescribed that 1,000 people per million be tested per week, he pointed out.

The Jakarta government’s success in exceeding the WHO requirement for COVID-19 testing is the result of cooperation and coordination among 47 laboratories in the capital city, Governor Baswedan said.

The collaboration involves privately-owned laboratories and those owned by the central government and state-run enterprises, he noted.

The daily capacity of all 47 laboratories for COVID-19 testing is recorded at 9,769 specimens, he informed.

The novel coronavirus disease initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 and then spread to various parts of the world, including countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Indonesian government made an official announcement on the country's first confirmed cases on March 2 this year.

As of July 17, 2020, Indonesia had recorded 83,130 COVID-19 cases, with 41,834 recoveries and 3,957 deaths.

The virus has spread across the country's provinces, with the highest number of cases reported from East Java (17,829); followed by Jakarta (15,889 cases), South Sulawesi (7,713 cases), Central Java (6,366 cases), and West Java (5,402 cases).

To tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia is making all-out efforts to develop a vaccine to fight the virus.

To this end, spokesperson for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Wiku Adisasmito reiterated the government's focus on ensuring safety, precision, and speed in the domestic production of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"We must say that in the development of this vaccine, the Indonesian government is prioritizing three important aspects, with the first is about it being safe; second, being precise; and third, being fast," Adisasmito remarked on Friday.

State-owned pharmaceutical holding company Bio Farma has recently collaborated with China’s Sinovac to produce the COVID-19 vaccine for Indonesia. Sinovac-made COVID-19 vaccine materials arrived in Indonesia on July 19, 2020.

Read: Jakarta Deputy Governor Reminds All Not to Take COVID-19 Lightly

ANTARA