Day: February 20, 2023

The number of cases of the Omicron XBB.1.5 or Kraken variant in Indonesia was recorded at six as of Monday noon, with all patients recovering from the infection, the Health Ministry reported.

“Since December 2022, there was one patient. In January, there were five additional patients. Thus, in total, there were six patients,” ministry spokesperson Mohammad Syahril informed at a press conference on COVID-19 development, which was held via videoconferencing platform Zoom.

Two of the Kraken patients had a history of international travel. One was a resident of Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, while another one was an Umrah pilgrim from Pamulang, Banten.

Meanwhile, the ministry received reports of the four other Kraken cases from Jakarta.

One of the patients was a woman, aged 46, who had received the first booster shot of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“We cannot conduct an epidemiological investigation because she does not live at the written address. This patient initially underwent self-isolation, but has now been declared to have recovered,” Syahril said.

The next patient was a 22-year-old woman who had received the booster vaccination. She experienced mild symptoms and did not have any comorbidity. She, too, underwent self-isolation and recovered.

“The next ones were a 47-year-old male and a 37-year-old female. The two of them are in an epidemiology investigation process,” he informed.

Earlier, during the inauguration of a genomic laboratory here on Monday, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin informed that the Kraken is a virus mutation that weakens when it infects the human body.

Mutation is a natural behavior shown by SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, to survive. As the virus mutates, the symptoms that it triggers become weaker.

In relation to this, Sadikin said that he is not too concerned about the emergence of confirmed Kraken cases in Indonesia.

Moreover, the latest serology survey in January 2023 has reported that 99 percent of the Indonesian population have developed protection against the virus on account of the government’s COVID-19 vaccination drive and due to natural immunity gained from earlier infection, he highlighted.

Source: Antara News

The Health Ministry is building collaboration with private pharmaceutical companies to support the establishment of a biobank ecosystem in Indonesia.

The ecosystem will enable the collection of different biological samples and support research to improve the quality of health services in Indonesia, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.

“I want to build a biobank to measure and store biological samples. It does not have to be centralized, but it has to be distributed to all regions in Indonesia, and can be accessed with an application and one database to control all initiatives,” he informed while inaugurating Bumame Genomics Laboratory in Jakarta on Monday.

He said biobanks in Indonesia will be supported by bioinformatics capabilities that are currently being developed by the government as the main system of reliable computing, in the form of primary, secondary, and tertiary analyses that combine data, demographics, clinical, and genomic expertise, in accordance with expertise in medicine, biology, knowledge, and information.

Biobanks will help store, process, and strengthen the analyses of DNA, RNA, tumor or non-tumor tissues, cells, plasma, and biological fluids for the development of national biotechnology, the minister added.

The ecosystem initiated so far has been in the form of the Biomedical and Genome Science Initiative Laboratory (BGSi), which currently occupies the former Eijkman Building in Salemba, Jakarta. BGSi serves as a referral center for genomic research through the support of seven national referral hospitals, he added.

The hospitals comprise Persahabatan Hospital for respiratory cases referral, Dharmais Hospital for cancer cases, National Brain Center Hospital (PON) for brain cases, Sulianti Saroso Hospital for infectious diseases, Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) for diabetes cases, Sardjito Hospital for rare diseases, and Ngurah Hospital Rai for health and beauty, he informed.

During the inauguration on Monday, the president director of PT Naleya Genomics Indonesia (NGI), Heru Dharmadi Wijaya, expressed support for the development of biobanks in Indonesia through the establishment of a genomics laboratory at Bumame Laboratory, TB Simatupang, Jakarta.

Genomics is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on studying an organism’s genes, or the genome, and understanding the mechanism of an organism as well as the consequences of interactions between genes and the influence of the environment on them.

In the future, genomics will be useful for customizing treatments, therapies, products, and technologies for patients. The development of genomics also has the potential to transform the healthcare ecosystem, Sadikin said.

In addition, genomic screening services can help improve reproductive health, promote healthy lifestyles, detect cancer early, control infectious diseases, and provide precision drug testing services, he highlighted.

The genomics laboratory was built using technology designed by the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) Research Group, with the laboratory, apart from providing genomics testing services, also aiming to become a training center for researchers in the field of genomics in Indonesia.

“NGI, BGI, and Bumame are focused on providing better and more efficient innovations and solutions for the health industry in Indonesia. We want to help detect and personalize genetic risk-based medical treatment, as well as the development of cutting-edge medical technology,” Wijaya said.

Together with the BGI Group, Bumame Laboratory, which has developed more than 100 types of health tests, will launch health screening services in the field of genomics.

As an initial step, the laboratory has started a series of risk-free pregnancy test services. In addition, it plans to launch the NOVA Newborn Genetic and Metabolic Disorder Screening service, which can detect the risk of congenital abnormalities in newborns, provide personalized genomics services, and offer various other genomic solutions using the latest genome sequencing methods.

Along with the inauguration of the genomics laboratory, the Health Ministry and BGI Group have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the prevention of thalassemia and the development of a National Gene Bank.

Source: Antara News