Jakarta – Indonesia is teaming up with other South-East Asian nations to reinforce the capacity for COVID-19 surveillance and infection recognition, chairman of the National Research and Development Firm (BRIN), Laksana Tri Handoko, has said.
” Similar to the global initiative through GISAID, the partnership between nations is necessary to reinforce surveillance on the spread and early recognition of SARS-CoV2 and its variants,” he said while speaking to ANTARA in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge shared by numerous nations around the world, which indicates its handling needs to also be carried out together, consisting of in regards to monitoring and identification of infection versions, he said.
” These procedures can not be done alone, and countries in the area must be involved even on the international scale,” he included.
Given that the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia has been a part of the ASEAN COVID Genomics Project and the ASEAN-Wide Anti-COVID-19 Sero-Surveillance Study, he said.
Indonesia is also supporting worldwide efforts for identifying COVID-19 versions by sending genome sequencing results to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), he included.
The SARS-CoV-2 infection has actually altered and its new variations include those that are more contagious, he noted.
Such conditions make building monitoring capability and recognition of coronavirus versions to identify the qualities of infection attacks essential in efforts to manage the transmission of COVID-19, he said.
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