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 screens tourists as China's SARS-like virus outbreak reaches Thailand
Ports and airports in Indonesia have put up thermal scanners to monitor people entering the country following the ministry's recommendation issued on Jan. 5, as a mysterious SARS-like virus first identified in China has been observed in neighboring Thailand, marking the first outbreak recorded outside the originating country's borders.
Change Size
In a place as public as an airport, viruses inevitably lurk in every corner. Ports and airports in Indonesia have put up thermal scanners to monitor people entering the country following the ministry's recommendation issued on Jan. 5, as a mysterious SARS-like virus first identified in China has been observed in neighboring Thailand, marking the first outbreak recorded outside the originating country's borders. (Shutterstock/File)
T
he government is ramping up efforts to prevent a mysterious SARS-like virus first identified in China from entering Indonesia as neighboring Thailand marked the first outbreak recorded outside the originating country's borders.
Thailand officials confirmed that a Chinese traveler in the country had been diagnosed with mild pneumonia on Jan. 8, which was later found to have been caused by the same novel coronavirus first identified in a pneumonia patient in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, AFP reported.
The new coronavirus, which belongs to a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to the deadly SARS disease, has infected 41 people and killed one in China, AFP reported, adding that Wuhan's authorities had identified a seafood market in the city as the center of the outbreak before closing it on Jan. 1. The virus has not been previously identified in humans and so far there has been no indication that the virus transmits from human to human.
The director general for disease control and prevention at the Indonesian Health Ministry, Anung Sugihantono, said the ministry had anticipated the outbreak, including by heightening prevention, detection and responsive efforts at entrance points across the country.
Ports and airports in the country have put up thermal scanners to monitor people entering the country following the ministry's recommendation issued on Jan. 5, as fever is one of the common symptoms of the coronavirus.
No travel warning for China was necessary for now, said Anung, who is currently in Batam, Riau Islands, a main entrance point into Indonesia for Chinese tourists, to brief port health office workers on how to detect the virus.
"We are following the World Health Organization, which has not even issued a travel advisory," Anung told The Jakarta Post via text message on Tuesday.
