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Indonesia confirms two new Omicron cases
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A COVID-19 patient waits for an ambulance to take him to the former athletes village emergency COVID-19 hospital in Jakarta, on Sept. 10, 2020. JP/Dhoni Setiawan (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he government has confirmed two new cases of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant on Saturday among people who recently arrived in the country.
Health Ministry spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi said the two cases were detected after authorities completed genomic sequencing on five suspected cases with the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 – the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – that were reported on Thursday.
“The two new confirmed patients are identified as IKWJ, a 42-year-old male who returned from South America and M, 50-year-old male who returned from England. Both patients are currently in quarantine at the athlete’s village [in Jakarta],” said Nadia in a statement on Friday, referring to the government-run facility in Jakarta that was converted into a COVID-19 quarantine and emergency hospital last year.
Read also: Indonesia to stick to current curbs for Christmas, New Year holidays
The authorities were able to flag the five suspected cases through a specific type of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that can detect the S-gene target failure (SGTF), which is one of the identifiers of the Omicron mutations, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, Siti said.
In total, Indonesia has so far reported three Omicron cases, including the first patient, identified only as N, who works as a cleaning service worker at the former athlete’s village.
Nadia urged people to remain on the alert and to refrain from making any international trips to prevent the transmission of Omicron in the country upon their return.
