In an attempt to suppress the spread of COVID-19, the National COVID-19 job force and the Health Ministry have teamed up for a strengthened tracing program in 10 concern provinces, namely Aceh, North Sumatra, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and Papua.
The program aims to include more contact tracers in community university hospital (Puskesmas) and information officers to perform basic epidemiological analyses in 51 cities and regencies in those 10 provinces.
The job force’s health management head Alexander K. Ginting stated during the program launch that they were targeting 1,612 Puskemas and looking for to include 8,060 contact tracers across the island chain.
The program is seeking to assist the cities and regencies in finding more than 80 percent of close contacts from validated COVID-19 cases within 72 hours and monitoring the close contacts for 14 days from contact with an infected person.
Muhammad Budi Hidayat, acting general director of disease avoidance and control at the Health Ministry stated on Tuesday that the program would include open recruitment for contact tracing volunteers and data managers in the 51 cities and regencies.
Budi pointed out that they needed to improve the contact tracer capability and proficiencies in the field particularly in utilizing integrated tracking applications, stigma management, danger communication and independent isolation support.
Meanwhile, Vensya Sitohang, the ministry’s surveillance and health quarantine director, stressed the significance of having more contact tracers due to the high daily verified cases.
Targeted screening and tracing kind a big part of the federal government’s efforts to decrease the spread of the coronavirus.
COVID-19 volunteer coordinator Andre Rahadian invited public health graduates to join his team to help the country battle the coronavirus.
Andre said in a statement recently that the needed public health graduates would be released as contact tracing volunteers. He went on to state that the COVID-19 volunteer group so far comprised 32,000 individuals, with 6,500 of them ready to be stationed in Puskemas throughout the nation.
According to Andre, Indonesia has at least 1,800 Puskesmas, with each center needing a total of 5 officers, including 3 public servants and two volunteers doing tracing.
Health graduates who want to sign up with the tracing team and who live in the priority regencies may call their local health agency or register through bit.ly/ RekrutmenVolunterContactTracing
The contact tracer volunteers will get training from the Health Ministry and the National COVID-19 job force in using the tracing app silacak.kemkes.go.id (jes)
Editor’s note: This article is part of a public project by the COVID-19 job force to raise individuals’s awareness about the pandemic.
