Indonesia plans to build hospital for patients with Covid-19
Indonesia plans to build a hospital to treat people infected by the coronavirus on Galang Island in the Riau Islands, said Public Works and Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono yesterday.
The health facility will be located around an hour's drive from the airport in Batam and will have better accessibility than Sebaru Kecil island near Jakarta, where 257 crew members of two cruise ships - World Dream and Diamond Princess - are being quarantined, he told reporters in Jakarta.
He added that the army will help with the construction and the hospital will be run by the Health Ministry.
The world's fourth-most populous nation with more than 260 million people had quarantined 237 Indonesians and one foreign spouse evacuated from Wuhan, China, on Natuna Islands in the Riau Islands from Feb 2 to 16.
But the move sparked opposition from the locals fearful of the fast-spreading infection, prompting the government to pick an uninhabited island as an alternative quarantine site.
Galang Island was once a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp for over 170,000 people seeking refuge from conflicts across South-east Asia, and was closed in 1996.
At present, Indonesia has 14 referral hospitals at the national level tasked with tackling the Covid-19. Another 20 hospitals at the provincial level and another 132 hospitals at the regional level are also prepared to handle patients infected by the virus.
Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital in Jakarta is currently treating the country's first two Covid-19 patients - a 31-year-old woman and her 64-year-old mother.
The Health Ministry's secretary of the directorate-general for disease control and prevention, Mr Achmad Yurianto, said that both of them are in good condition, based on the hospital's report yesterday.
"They are better (today) than yesterday. They have no complaints. But, we still need to isolate them because they are confirmed positive," he told reporters.
Although another family member of the two patients and their maid had tested negative for the virus, local health authorities continued to track around 50 participants of a dance event attended by one of them, said Mr Achmad, noting that these efforts have been complicated by a number of them having left Jakarta.
All 188 crew members of World Dream cruise ship under observation in Sebaru tested negative, while 67 out of 69 crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise liner, also under similar observation, also tested negative, he said. Two others are being retested, said Mr Achmad, who serves as the government spokesman on the issue.
Apart from the crew members, the ministry has tested 155 suspected cases nationwide, including the first two positive cases. It is re-examining samples from four people, while the majority had come back negative.
Mr Achmad further said that starting yesterday, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for the virus will be expanded by the 10 laboratories controlled by the Health Ministry in cities outside Jakarta - Batam, Medan, Palembang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Banjarmasin, Manado, Makassar and Ambon - to allow much faster response.
In addition to PCR tests, Indonesia also uses gene sequencing, which takes about three days to complete, to detect the Covid-19.
Indonesia has announced a raft of assistance measures funded by 10.3 trillion rupiah (S$1 billion) from this year's state budget to minimise the impact of the epidemic on its businesses, and is expected to roll out the second stimulus package that will relax export and import rules.