Jakarta (ANTARA) - Head of the COVID-19 Task Force for the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) Zubairi Djoerban said on Thursday that the Delta and Omicron hybrid COVID-19 variant (Deltacron) is not a variant of concern yet.

"Deltacron has spread to many people. However, the number is quite low. It has not become a worrying situation," he stated.

Deltacorn is a combination of the Delta variant, which is characterized by pain and severe symptoms, and the Omicron variant, which is highly contagious, he explained.

For a hybrid variant of the two, it will be very easy to penetrate a person's immune system and increase the severity of symptoms upon infection.

"Fortunately, the Deltacron variant is not too deadly and does not easily spread like Omicron," Djoerban remarked.

The emergence of Deltacron reflects the nature of the virus, which is to stay alive by using the human body as a host, he said.

"In order to survive, the virus enters people's bodies to stay in there. Therefore, they mutate because many people have been infected," he explained.

Separately, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said that until now, the ministry has not detected Deltacron cases in Indonesia.

Related news: Health Ministry to monitor Deltacron situation

"Until now, the government has not detected any cases of the Deltacron variant in Indonesia, and we will continue to monitor it," she stated.

Tarmizi informed that currently, cases are still dominated by the Omicron variant and a number of its subvariants. Until March 15, 2022, 668 cases of Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant have been recorded in Indonesia. However, the Omicron BA.1 subvariant is still dominating the country.

"Our data shows that there are 668 cases caused by Omicron BA.2 and Omicron BA.1 mostly caused an increase in cases. Cumulatively, from January to March there were 5,625 cases," she explained.

Related news: Deltacron is hybrid variant of BA.1 and B.1617.2: Expert



Translator: Andi Firdaus, Resinta S
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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