Urologist and professor at the University of Indonesia’s (UI) Faculty of Medicine, Akmal Taher, has tendered his resignation as the task force’s health division head, saying that he would continue contact tracing and testing -- two measures he believed as essential in curbing COVID-19 -- elsewhere.

"It's true that I have resigned [...] For me, tracing and testing must be absolutely improved and I believe this must be done at community health centers," he said in a discussion organized by the Center of Indonesia Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI) on Saturday.

"These are things I'll do in any future place I work, because I think we haven't done them."

Indonesia’s testing rate remains low, with 0.10 tests per 1,000 people over a rolling seven-day average, lower than India's 0.71 and the Philippines' 0.31, according to data from ourworldindata.org as of Sept. 23.

Akmal did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former director of Jakarta-based Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital indicated that he disagreed with the current pandemic response measures.

During Saturday’s discussion, Akmal, despite acknowledging the government's efforts to accelerate testing for a possible vaccine, said that he personally could not make any promises about vaccines being soon developed given that clinical trials were still underway.

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