“Four out of nine positive Indonesians have been declared negative [recovered] and the remaining five are still undergoing treatment in the hospitals and they are in a stable condition,” Retno told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The nine Indonesians are crew members of the coronavirus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship that had been docked in the port of Yokohama, Japan. Sixty-nine of their fellow crew members who tested negative for the disease have been evacuated from the ship and are currently quarantined in Sebaru Island, Thousand Islands regency, Jakarta.

Retno said the Foreign Ministry was closely monitoring the well-being of Indonesians in countries that were hardest hit by the virus. 

“Our focus is on the countries that have had a significant increase of [confirmed] cases […] We are intensively communicating with our missions abroad in Iran, Italy, South Korea and Japan [as countries with significant surges in cases],” she said.

“Our embassies are also consistently showing support for the [governments] of the affected countries,” Retno added.

Read also: Jakarta steps up efforts to tackle COVID-19 following two confirmed cases

Separately, the ministry’s director for citizen protection, Judha Nugraha, said on Wednesday that the recovered Indonesian crew members were still hospitalized to undergo a second test – except for one who has already taken the two tests and had been evacuated along with the other crew members who tested negative.

As of Wednesday, real-time data from the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) recorded 93,158 confirmed cases worldwide, with a total death toll of 3,198. South Korea bears the second-highest number of cases, second only to China, with 5,328 confirmed cases. Meanwhile, Italy has 2,502 cases, Iran has 2,336 cases and Japan has 293 cases so far.

More than 50,600 people worldwide have recovered from the disease.