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Experts urge govt to increase vaccine stocks, rollout in anticipation of XBB wave
Epidemiologists have urged the government to bolster third dose rollout and address vaccine shortages as Indonesia faces a possible new wave of COVID-19 infections triggered by new and highly contagious XBB, a subvariant of Omicron.
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Third jab: A health worker administers a COVID-19 booster vaccine in Blok M, South Jakarta, on Aug. 14. Over 58.8 million people of Indonesia's 234.6 million target have received a booster shot so far. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja)
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pidemiologists have urged the government to bolster the third dose rollout and address vaccine shortages as Indonesia faces a possible new wave of COVID-19 infections triggered by the new and highly contagious XBB, a subvariant of Omicron.
By Wednesday, the Health Ministry had recorded four local transmissions of the XBB subvariant, affecting three women living in Jakarta and one in Surabaya. The patient in Surabaya, who tested positive on Sept. 26, had the country’s first confirmed case of the subvariant. All four patients have now recovered.
XBB is another subvariant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant that has been driving up cases in Singapore in recent weeks. XBB is said to be the most antibody-evasive subvariant to date, although so far there is no evidence that it can cause more severe illness in people who had immunity from a previous infection or vaccines. Some scientists believe XBB is more contagious than BA.5, another Omicron subvariant that triggered a wave of infections in Indonesia in July and August.
According to the Health Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Syahril, XBB infections are soaring rapidly in Singapore with the daily caseload having reached 0.79 times the peak of the BA.5 wave in the neighboring country.
"So far the XBB subvariant has been detected in 26 countries, including Indonesia. It has caused a sharp increase in cases in Singapore while hospitalizations are trending upward there, although deaths remain very low," Syahril told a press conference on Wednesday.
He earlier said that 24 out of 37 provinces in Indonesia had reported a rise in COVID-19 transmissions in the past week. The country recorded 3,008 new cases on Tuesday. It was the first time Indonesia reported more than 3,000 cases since Sept. 8.
“However, we will still be monitoring [cases numbers] over the next few days, and the ministry is conducting whole genome sequencing to see whether XBB has become dominant here," he said.
