TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono said that the new SARS-CoV-2 variant that has been found in Indonesia can spread three-times faster than the Coronavirus from Wuhan, China.

He said in Thursday’s meeting with the House of Representatives (DPR) that a severe contagion of Covid-19 can be prevented if the transmission rate found in the field is 0.9 or as high as first novel coronavirus variant detected at the end of 2019. However, the infection rate of the new virus is 3.35 times faster than the original one.

This is based on the observation in the area of Cilacap, Central Java, where it first began with the quarantine of 20 ship crewmen after the ship they worked in docked in India, which faces a devastating Covid-19 crisis due to a new viral mutation.

The genome screening of the 20 men resulted in 14 cases of healthcare workers being infected by the mutated coronavirus, even though the healthcare workers wore complete personal protection equipment (PPE).

“This shows how aggressive the viral transmission of the virus that is classified by the WHO as a variant of concern,” said Dante Saksono who refers to the SARS-CoV-2 B.1617 variant first found in India.

During the House meeting, Dante Saksono said there are 35 cases caused by imported variants of concern while another 19 cases had no contact with overseas sources, meaning there is already a local contamination due to the mutated virus.

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