Jakarta residents can ask the Jakarta Fire Mitigation and Rescue Agency to disinfect their neighborhoods through a free service.

Agency head Satriadi Gunawan said that residents could submit their request through the head of their Neighborhood Unit (RT) or Community Units (RW) to then forward their request to the subdistrict, which would inform the local fire department.

“The free sterilization [sic] service is only available for a neighborhood as well as community and public facilities, not [individual houses],” Satriadi said as quoted by tribunnews.com on Thursday.

Although residents could ask for the agency’s disinfection services they could disinfect their neighborhoods themselves, he said, adding that the agency encouraged frequent disinfection “to prevent COVID-19 transmission”.

Separately, PT Jakarta Industrial Estate Pulogadung (JIEP), an industrial estate developer and manager in East Jakarta, is also providing disinfection services for its tenants and investors during the so-called phase II of the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) that was imposed on Sept. 14.

JIEP corporate secretary Purwati said that the service was part of the company’s commitment to mitigating COVID-19 in the industrial estate, and planned to disinfect the estate and all facilities over the next two weeks.

“Our goal is to have zero COVID-19 transmission,” said Gali Geraldi, the company’s assistant vice president of corporate image communication and CSR.

Earlier in September, reports said that transmission clusters had been detected at several factories.

The most recent cluster emerged on Sept. 21 at the PT Indonesia Epson Industry plant at the East Jakarta Industrial Park in Cikarang, Bekasi regency, West Java. By Tuesday, 1,197 people connected to the plant had contracted the coronavirus.

The West Java regency of Bekasi, which borders the capital to the northeast, has seen at least three major clusters emerge at industrial areas at the end of August, for a combined total of 541 confirmed cases. The August clusters were traced to LG Electronics, motorcycle manufacturer Suzuki and automotive parts manufacturer PT Nippon Oilseal Kogyu.

Meanwhile, dozens of confirmed cases were traced to Unilever Indonesia in July and Hitachi Ltd. in May.

Bekasi Health Agency head Sri Enny Mainarti said that a total of 22 factories in the regency had reported COVID-19 cases among their workers since the Indonesian outbreak emerged in March. 

In Banten, Tangerang Mayor Arief Wismansyah said that the local administration had traced 43 cases to a cluster at a factory in July-August.

Central Java and East Java have also reported factory cluster cases. Central Java traced around 300 COVID-19 cases to companies in July, while East Java traced more than 100 cases to two cigarette factories in April-May. (iwa)

Editor’s note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force to raise people’s awareness about the pandemic.