TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Head of the Central Java Province healthcare agency, Yulianto Prabowo, said that 86 percent of Covid-19 samples taken from the region of Kudus are identified as the delta strain from India.

"Eighty-six percent of the entire samples were a new strain," said Yulianto on Tuesday, June 15, 2021.

However, Yulianto made sure that the test results cannot be a benchmark of the spread of the new Covid-19 strain in the Central Java regency and that the samples that were taken in this region came from Covid-19 patients criteria which include survivors, vaccinated people, invulnerable groups and so on. Yulianto insists that sample extractions must be based on research methodology.

"This does not definitively represent whole members of a community," said Yulianto.

The genome sequencing research in Central Java was held at the Jakarta health research and development agency, Gadjah Mada University, and the Salatiga Research and Development Center on disease vectors and reservoirs.

Two laboratories located in Semarang City will also be used to conduct whole genome sequencing research which includes the Central Java Provincial Health Laboratory and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Diponegoro.

JAMAL A. NASHR