Only 36 in every million people are being tested for the coronavirus in Indonesia, making it the fourth worst in testing rate among countries with a population of 50 million or above, pandemic data site Worldometer has revealed.
The world's fourth-most populous country of 270 million performed only better than Ethiopia (16 tests for every million people), Bangladesh (18) and Nigeria (19), according to the site, which has introduced a new feature showing testing rates relative to the respective country's population.
In comparison, South Korea tests 8,996 for every million people, Singapore 6,666, and Malaysia 1,605.
Asked by The Straits Times yesterday about Indonesia's very low rate, Mr Achmad Yurianto, a government spokesman on Covid-19 management, said: "We don't test based on the size of population, but based on contact tracing of positive cases as well as based on the visits to health facilities by people with Covid-19 symptoms."
He also pointed out that Indonesia is doing rapid tests, but the number of such tests - and the number of any confirmed cases from this procedure - do not add to the Covid-19 national tallies.
He stressed that such rapid tests, which are not as reliable as the standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, are used only to help with the early "screening" of people who might have contracted the virus. Any close contact who tested negative using a rapid test kit would have to redo the procedure after a period of time, while anyone testing positive would have to get confirmation with a PCR test.
Rapid tests are antibody tests to see if one has developed immunity to the coronavirus. But these tests have a limited role in diagnosis, according to experts, as it takes the body four days or longer after infection to produce antibodies - too late for the purpose of quick detection and contact tracing.
Indonesia's Health Ministry has been widely criticised for red tape in bringing in test kits and equipment to read the PCR test samples.
Recent media reports have noted indications that the ministry's official Covid-19 death toll nationwide, currently at 209, is an understated figure. Separate announcements from local governments in West Java and the Jakarta municipal government point to a higher toll.
Jakarta, with about half of the national confirmed cases, has conducted 401 burials according to the Covid-19 protocol, its governor Anies Baswedan said last Thursday. But the national tally puts the number of fatalities in Jakarta at 99.
