JAKARTA: Effort is underway to get all 78 laboratories available in Indonesia to do Covid-19 tests, Health Ministry Disease Control and Prevention Director General Achmad Yurianto said.
“Of the 78 targeted labs, we have (so far) used 32 laboratories,” he said here during a press briefing on Wednesday, according to The Jakarta Post.
President Joko Widodo had also called for increased testing and that the Health Ministry should aim to conduct at least 10,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests every day.
Yurianto said that besides increasing laboratory capacity and the number of test kits, the government would also look to increase the amount of reagent as well as human resources in labs and get samples from patients to laboratories faster.
He said the government had obtained 150,000 reagents for PCR tests and would immediately distribute them to the regions. As of Wednesday, the government has conducted more than 36,000 PCR tests from samples in 196 cities and regencies.
Indonesia's testing rate is among the lowest in the world, with only 132 tests per million people.
Neighbouring Malaysia has conducted more than 2,000 tests per million people, while Singapore and South Korea have conducted over 10,000 test per million people.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency head and Covid-19 task force chief Doni Monardo had said the task force was collaborating with the Health Ministry, the State Owned Enterprises Ministry and the Research and Technology Ministry to improve testing capacity.