Employees keen to work in the ministry's building must follow additional points of the healthcare protocol, including checking body temperature and providing stocks of medical masks for those in needJakarta (ANTARA) - The Social Affairs Ministry has begun intensifying its surveillance over the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by using infrared thermometers to check the health of employees and guests at its building's lobby area.
"We have implemented President Joko Widodo's instruction on the necessary precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 outbreak," Social Affairs Minister Juliari P. Batubara told journalists here on Wednesday.
Batubara also was screened with an infrared thermometer by the ministry's health workers to check his body temperature.
The ministry's health workers are stationed at the front and central lobby areas of the ministry's main building to enable them to check the body temperature of both employees and officials as well as guests to ensure that they are healthy.
"Employees keen to work in the ministry's building must follow additional points of the healthcare protocol, including checking body temperature and providing stocks of medical masks for those in need," he stated.
The Indonesian government has put in place precautionary measures since the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak that had first struck the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December 2019.
In addition to installing thermal scanners at the country's airports and seaports as well as making preparations at hospitals across the archipelago, the Indonesian government had repatriated several hundreds of its citizens.
On Feb 2, a total of 238 Indonesian nationals were airlifted from Wuhan, China, to then be quarantined in Natuna District's area in Riau Islands Province. All of them were found to be healthy and sent back to their families.
The Indonesian government also repatriated 188 Indonesians employed as crew members of the cruise ship World Dream liner and 69 Indonesians employed as cabin crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
The World Dream cruise ship's crew members have been sent to Sebaru Kecil Island, Jakarta's Thousand Islands, for a 14-day quarantine, while 69 others are to be brought to the same island this week.
On March 2, 2020, President Jokowi declared that two Indonesians tested positive for COVID-19, so they were treated in an isolated room of the Jakarta-based Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital.
The deadly virus outbreak, which has infected 65 countries, including Indonesia, claimed at least three thousand lives -- most of whom are in China, and infected over 88,400 people worldwide.
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Translator: Desi P, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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