Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced on Monday that two of his citizens have tested positive for Chinese coronavirus, making them the first official cases of the virus on his country’s soil.
“I received a report from the health minister that a mother and her daughter tested positive for the coronavirus,” said Wikodo, according to local media.
Widodo explained that the mother and daughter, aged 64 and 31 respectively, had likely contracted the virus after meeting with a Japanese national who was diagnosed with the disease shortly after leaving Indonesia. He did not provide specific dates for their meeting or travel but confirmed that the pair was receiving quarantined treatment in Indonesia.
Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto also held a press conference on Monday to provide more details about the case, revealing that the two women came from the city of Depok outside the capital of Jakarta where the meeting took place. He added that health officials were now examining the victims’ neighborhood to try and prevent a wider outbreak.
The confirmation of cases within Indonesia follows weeks of confusion over whether the country was vulnerable to the virus, after a number of foreign nationals who visited the country, particularly the tourist island of Bali, returned to their home countries testing positive.
An Indonesian boy cleans his hands using alcohol gel at a store as Indonesia reports two cases of COVID-19 on March 3, 2020 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Two women in Indonesia have tested positive for Coronavirus and are being treated at Sulianti Saroso infectious diseases hospital in Jakarta. The news comes as heath experts express concerns that cases are going unreported in Indonesia, a country that has close economic ties to China including being one of the top ten destinations for travellers from Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic. (Ulet Ifansasti/Images)
A South Korean woman in the city of Solo, Central Java committed suicide last week amid suspicions that she was infected with the disease. Yet a postmortem examination found she tested negative for the virus after hanging herself in her hotel room.
“We found a note from her, in Korean, which said that she was tired of never recovering from a disease, and she felt that she may have been infected with the coronavirus,” Solo Police Chief Grand Commissioner Andy Rifai told reporters yesterday, according to CNN Indonesia.
The Indonesian government has repeatedly denied claims that the virus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is spreading across their country of 200 million. This despite the fact that neighboring countries including South Korea and Malaysia have actively confirmed thousands of cases.
Some officials claimed the country was being protected by divine intervention. The lack of clarity has been worsened by the fact that scientists are yet to prove exactly where and how foreign nationals contracted the virus.
The Indonesian Health Ministry has now formally declared the outbreak a “dangerous communicable disease” under the 2015 Communicable Disease Act, thus granting the authorities the power to impose quarantine on individuals suspected of carrying the disease.
They will also have the right to temporarily close any event of venue, including the recent spate of anti-government student demonstrations.
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