TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia detects first locally transmitted Omicron case
The first confirmed case was a 37-year-old male who was from the city of Medan and had visited a restaurant in Jakarta's central business district earlier this month, Siti Nadia told a news conference.
Change Size
An illustration picture taken in London on December 2, 2021 shows four syringes and a screen displaying the word 'Omicron', the name of the new covid 19 variant, and an illustration of the virus. (AFP/Justin Thallis)
H
ealth authorities were conducting contact tracing on Tuesday after detecting Indonesia's first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the community, health ministry official Siti Nadia Tarmizi said.
The first confirmed case was a 37-year-old male who was from the city of Medan and had visited a restaurant in Jakarta's central business district earlier this month, Siti Nadia told a news conference.
The man had no recent history of overseas travel or contacts with international travelers, she said, adding he was asymptomatic and was in isolation at a Jakarta hospital.
Earlier this month, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo urged people to stick to health protocols after authorities said that an employee at an isolation hospital in Jakarta had tested positive for the variant.
Health authorities say that there have been 47 confirmed cases of Omicron in Indonesia, mostly imported cases of the variant, which experts say in initial studies appears to be more contagious but less virulent than previous variants.
Indonesia has suffered one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia with over 4.2 million infections and 144,000 deaths.
But after cases peaked in July due to the spread of the transmissible Delta variant, infections have fallen sharply in Indonesia and remained low.
