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Govt appoints Achmad Yurianto as spokesperson for COVID-19-related matters in Indonesia
Prior to his appointment, Yurianto had mixed up diseases and viruses when answering The Jakarta Post’s questions about a Japanese citizen who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon his return from a trip to Indonesia.
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Indonesia has appointed Achmad Yurianto (center) of the Health Ministry's Disease Control and Prevention Directorate General as the spokesperson for coronavirus related matters following the country's first confirmed cases of COVID-19. (Tribunnews.com/Fransiskus Adhiyuda)
T
he government appointed on Tuesday the Disease Control and Prevention Directorate General’s secretary, Achmad Yurianto , spokesperson for all coronavirus-related matters following the country’s first confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Presidential Secretariat deputy head of protocol, press and media Bey Triadi Machmudin said in a statement that Yurianto would handle all questions related to the coronavirus.
Prior to his appointment, Yurianto had mixed up diseases and viruses when answering The Jakarta Post’s questions about a Japanese citizen who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon his return from a trip to Indonesia.
“There [in Japan], he was diagnosed by doctors to have been infected with SARS coronavirus type 2,” Yurianto told the Post on Feb. 25.
He had insisted that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was different from COVID-19.
"What we have now is a COVID-19 epidemic. There are experts saying that COVID-19 is different from SARS CoV-2 and that the differences reach 70 percent,” he said.
Read also: Patient in Cianjur did not die from COVID-19: Health Ministry
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), which is responsible for naming and classifying new viruses, announced on Feb. 11 that the virus that caused COVID-19 had been named SARS-CoV-2.
The World Health Organization has also published a special webpage on the naming of the new coronavirus, with a section titled "Why do the virus and the disease have different names?", providing a clear explanation. (nal)
