Alexandra Ferguson
(Reuters) – Rising coronavirus cases on Indonesia’s two most populous islands have health experts fear the worst is yet to come, with few travel restrictions at a time when dangerous variants are causing record numbers deaths elsewhere in Southeast Asia The number of cases has risen sharply in Java and Sumatra three weeks after the holidays that followed the month of Islamic fasting, when millions of people roamed the archipelago ignoring the temporary travel ban .
In Kudus, in central Java, cases have soared by 7,594% since then, according to Wiku Adisasmito, of the Indonesian task force to fight covid-19. Despite the fact that health reinforcements have been brought in, the capacity of the hospitals has reached 90%, according to local media.
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Defriman Djafri, an epidemiologist at the University of Andalas in Padang, said deaths in West Sumatra in May were the highest on record.
In Riau, Sumatra, daily cases more than doubled from early April to more than 800 in mid-May, while the positivity rate stood at 35.8% last week, said Wildan Asfan Hasibuan, epidemiologist and advisor to the provincial working group.
Wildan attributed the increase to greater mobility and the possible spread of variants of the coronavirus, which have caused large spikes in many countries.
The impact of variants is difficult to determine in Indonesia, which has limited genomic sequencing capacity.
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The country is also lacking in testing and tracing, and its vaccination campaign has progressed slowly, with only one in 18 people being vaccinated so far.
Recent studies have also indicated that cases could be much higher than the nearly 1.9 million known infections, one of the highest cases in Asia.
Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Australia’s Griffith University, said Indonesia should take variants more seriously, particularly the B.1.617.2 strain, first identified in India, which he says is in its early stages. of propagation.
“If we don’t change our strategy, we will face an explosion of cases in the community, mortality will increase,” he said.
“It means that sooner or later it will reach the most vulnerable … we will face an explosion of cases that we will not be able to contain or respond to in our health centers.”
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