Kekhawatiran itu disoroti oleh sejumlah media asing, di antaranya adalah Sydney Morning Herald dan The Age. Dalam laporannya jelang akhir pekan ini, media-media tersebut mengungkapkan bahwa laboratorium medis di Indonesia tidak memiliki perangkat pengujian yang diperlukan untuk dengan cepat mendeteksi virus corona.
Sydney Morning Herald pada Jumat (31/1) melaporkan bahwa specific reagent atau bahan kimia yang digunakan dalam perangkat pengujian untuk membantu menganalisis dan mengidentifikasi virus corona belum tersedia di Indonesia. Bahan kimia ini baru akan tiba di Indonesia dalam beberapa hari ke depan.
Sementara itu, laboratorium di Indonesia sejauh ini disebut-sebut hanya mampu mendeteksi keberadaan keluarga coronavirus pada orang yang berpotensi terinfeksi. Kelompok virus ini juga termasuk flu biasa, dan MERS serta virus SARS yang sekarang sudah punah.
Untuk mengidentifikasi infeksi virus corona baru yang juga dikenal dengan istilah 2019-nCov, otoritas medis di Indonesia harus mendeteksi keluarga virus corona pada seseorang dan kemudian secara genetis mengurutkan hasilnya.
Proses ini cukup kompleks dan dapat memakan waktu lima hingga enam hari. Ketua Institut Biologi Molekuler Eijkman di Jakarta, Profesor Amin Soebandrio, yang terlibat dalam pekerjaan pengujian dan pengurutan gen menjelaskan bahwa reagent yang dapat mengurangi waktu yang dibutuhkan untuk mendeteksi virus corona baru dijadwalkan tiba di Indonesia sesegera mungkin.
"Kami sedang dalam proses mendapatkan perangkat deteksi khusus untuk coronavirus novel 2019. Kami berharap bahwa dalam beberapa hari mendatang kami akan menerima perangkat spesifik sehingga kami tidak perlu melakukan pengurutan gen," jelasnya.
"Kami tidak perlu melakukan dua langkah (untuk mengkonfirmasi infeksi)," tambahnya.
Lebih lanjut dia menjelaskan bahwa lembaganya terlibat dalam pekerjaan pengujian dan pengurutan gen yang sedang dilakukan. Dia mengakui bahwa ada kemungkinan virus corona baru hadir tetapi tidak terdeteksi di Indonesia. Pasanya, negara tetangga seperti Singapura, Malaysia dan Australia, telah mendeteksi kasus.
"Jika Anda bertanya apakah itu mungkin, tentu saja ada kemungkinan tetapi kami belum memiliki bukti. Saat ini, kami tidak tahu apakah virus telah masuk ke Indonesia atau belum," ungkapnya kepada Sydney Morning Herald.
***Artikel ini telah tayang di Rmol.id dengan judul "Media Asing Soroti Kemampuan Indonesia Deteksi Infeksi Virus Corona", https://dunia.rmol.id/read/2020/01/31/419718/media-asing-soroti-kemampuan-indonesia-deteksi-infeksi-virus-corona
Berikut Artikel yang diambil dari Situs Sydney Morning Herald
'That's a problem': Indonesia's coronavirus vulnerability revealed
Medical experts have raised concerns about Indonesia's ability to detect novel coronavirus, potentially leaving a number of undiagnosed cases on Australia's doorstep.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal that Indonesian medical laboratories lack the testing kits needed to rapidly detect the Wuhan coronavirus, according to one of the country's leading molecular biologists, and the virus may already be present in the country despite government claims of no infections.
The specific reagents — chemicals used in testing kits to help analyse and identify the Wuhan or novel coronavirus — are not yet available in the country. These required reagents are only due to arrive in Indonesia in the next few days.
In the interim, the country's labs have only been able to detect the presence of the coronavirus family in a potentially infected person. This family of viruses also includes the common cold, and the MERS and now-extinct SARS viruses. The country is yet to positively confirm a single case of the novel coronavirus.
To identify an infection of the novel coronavirus from China, which is also known as 2019-nCov, medical authorities in Indonesia have to detect the coronavirus family in a person and then genetically sequence the results, a process which can take five or six days.
Professor Amin Soebandrio, the chairman of Jakarta's Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, which is involved in the testing and gene sequencing work, confirmed to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the reagent — which can reduce the time taken to detect the coronavirus to a few hours — was due to arrive in Indonesia soon.
"We are in the process of obtaining the specific detection kit for the 2019 novel coronavirus. We expect that in the coming few days we will receive the specific kit so we don’t need to do the gene sequencing," he said.
"We won't need to do the two steps [to confirm an infection]."
Professor Amin said the institute was involved in the testing and gene sequencing work being conducted. He conceded it was possible that novel coronavirus was present but undetected in Indonesia, noting that near neighbours, including Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, had detected cases.
"If you ask if it's possible, of course there is a possibility but we don’t have evidence yet. Currently, we don’t know if the virus has entered Indonesia or not."
Novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, and has spread to 19 other countries. Australia's south-east Asian neighbours, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, have all reported cases. Indonesia had not reported any confirmed cases.
These other nations in south-east Asia all have much smaller populations than Indonesia's 264 million people.
China is also one of the top five sources of tourists to Indonesia, with about 2 million Chinese nationals visiting in 2018. Australia is also in the top five, with more than a million Australians visiting Bali each year.
DFAT has not issued any specific advice about travel to Indonesia or other south-east Asian countries on its Smart Traveller website, though there is universal advice about the novel coronavirus.
University of Queensland professor of virology Ian Mackay said the arrival of the specific reagents needed to test for the new strain of coronavirus would be "good news for Indonesia" — and the region — in the fight against novel coronavirus.
"What we are are trying to do at the moment internationally is lock this virus down and stop it spreading. If you can’t identify it [the virus] in a traveller, that’s a problem. Checking someone’s temperatures only works if they have a temperature," he said.
The World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus a public health emergency on Friday.
More than 8000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide, with the vast majority in China.
At a press conference on Thursday, the Director-General for Indonesia's Health Ministry's Disease Prevention and Control unit, Anung Sugihantono, said 16 people had been under surveillance by health authorities and eight remained under monitoring.
The suspected cases have been in Jakarta, Bali, Manado and Sorong.
"Up until today, the fact is there is no confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Indonesia," he said.
Anung confirmed that testing was currently a two-stage process involving a test for the coronavirus family and then genetic sequencing. He compared the lengthy process to matching fingerprints, but did not respond to requests for further information about the absence of specific reagents.
There are 243 Indonesian citizens in the quarantine zone in China, and President Joko Widodo has ordered they be evacuated immediately.