The Ministry of Health through the Director General of Diseases Prevention and Control recently issued guidelines for the provincial and regional governments with regard to recent increase of Covid-19 cases globally.

With regard to the above, the Director General of Disease Prevention and Control (the "Director General") issued (i) Letter No. IM.02.04/C/4799/2023 of 2023 dated December 8, 2023 regarding Precautions of Increase of Covid-19 Cases for International Travelers (the "Letter") and (ii) Circular Letter No. HK.02.02/C/4815/2023 dated December 11, 2023 regarding Increased Awareness Against the Surge of Covid-19 Cases (the "Circular Letter").

We set out below certain key points of the Letter and the Circular Letter.

♦ General Tasks of Healthcare Providers

Under the Circular Letter, the following are certain measures to be taken by: i) Port Health Offices (Kantor Kesehatan Pelabuhan or KKP); ii) Provincial and Regency/City Health Agencies; iii) Public Health Laboratories; and iv) Hospitals, Public Health Centers (Puskesmas) and other Health Service Facilities (collectively referred to as the "Healthcare Providers"):

  1. To monitor the development in Covid-19 situation and information through official channels, namely https://infeksiemerging.kemkes.go.id (for cases updates in Indonesia) and https://covid19.who.int/ (for global cases update);
  2. To completion of both primary and booster vaccination doses;
  3. To ensure the availability of Covid-19 vaccination services, and to ensure the availability of the vaccines;
  4. To monitor and to report new Covid-19 cases to the Director General through the Event Based Surveillance (EBS) within the application of Early Warning and Response System Application (Aplikasi Sistem Kewaspadaan Dini dan Respon or Aplikasi SKDR) and Public Health Emergency Operation Centre (PHEOC), including to record the antigen Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT-Ag) and Realtime Polimerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) to All Record Tc-19 Application of the Ministry of Health; and
  5. To ensure the implementation of case detection and response.

Other than the list above, each Healthcare Provider is subject to the respective tasks and obligations below:

  • Port Health Offices:
    1. To identify the vaccination status of overseas travelers before departure and it is highly recommended to complete the Covid-19 vaccination doses, both primary and booster vaccination; and
    2. To coordinate with the Health Agencies and local referral hospitals in order to enhance awareness of Covid-19 increased cases.
  • Provincial and Regency/City Health Agencies:
  1. To monitor the trend of increasing cases of Influenza Like Illness (ILI), pneumonia, Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and suspected Covid-19 through Indicator Based Surveillance (IBS) and Event Based Surveillance (EBS) through the SKDR Application or ILI-Sar sentinel surveillance;
  2. To ensure that the Regional Health Laboratories carry out an independent assessment of the capacity and resources of consumables and reagents for the COVID-19 RDT-Ag examination as well as RT-PCR, specimen collection, and sending reference whole genome sequencing (WGS) specimens;
  3. To follow up on reports of Covid-19 cases discovery from health facilities by continuing to carry out close contact tracing; and
  4. To ensure that all the Public Health Centers and other Healthcare Service Facilities to carry out active and passive case detection, as well as continuing laboratory examinations using RDT-Ag COVID-19 and RT-PCR.
  • Public Health Laboratories
  1. To prepare the provision of resources related to capacity and consumables for reagents related to the required COVID-19 laboratory examination, logistics for collecting and the delivery of WGS COVID-19 reference specimens;
  2. To coordinate with the Provincial Health Services Agencies and Regency/City Health Agencies regarding WGS examinations for every finding of a COVID-19 case that meets the provisions.
  • Hospitals, Public Health Centers and other Health Service Facilities.
  1. To monitor the trend of increasing cases of ILI, pneumonia, SARI and suspected Covid-19 through Indicator Based Surveillance (IBS) and Event Based Surveillance (EBS) through the SKDR Application or ILI-Sar sentinel surveillance;
  2. To carry out active and passive case detection, as well as continuing laboratory examinations using RDT-Ag COVID-19 and RT-PCR, and tracing close contacts;
  3. To inform public to re-implement health protocols including wearing masks in public places and transportation, as well as implementing clean and healthy living behavior.

♦ Precautions of the Increase of Covid-19 for Overseas Travelers

With regard to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in numbers countries in South-East Asia region, Letter No. IM.02.04/C/4799/2023 set out recommendation for overseas travelers to carry out vaccination (both primer dosage or booster dosage) before entering the territory of the Republic of Indonesia.

Accordingly, the Heads of Agencies of each of the Provinces and Regencies/Cities must ensure:

  1. all Community Health Centers (Puskesmas) and other Health Facilities in its respective working areas continue to provide Covid-19 vaccination services;
  2. vaccines and other logistics are sufficient; and
  3. the public is well informed about Covid-19 vaccination services.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.