"Since December 2022, there was one patient. In January, there were five additional patients. Thus, in total, there were six patients," ministry spokesperson Mohammad Syahril informed at a press conference on COVID-19 development, which was held via videoconferencing platform Zoom.
Two of the Kraken patients had a history of international travel. One was a resident of Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, while another one was an Umrah pilgrim from Pamulang, Banten.
Meanwhile, the ministry received reports of the four other Kraken cases from Jakarta.
One of the patients was a woman, aged 46, who had received the first booster shot of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine.
"We cannot conduct an epidemiological investigation because she does not live at the written address. This patient initially underwent self-isolation, but has now been declared to have recovered," Syahril said.
The next patient was a 22-year-old woman who had received the booster vaccination. She experienced mild symptoms and did not have any comorbidity. She, too, underwent self-isolation and recovered.
"The next ones were a 47-year-old male and a 37-year-old female. The two of them are in an epidemiology investigation process," he informed.
Earlier, during the inauguration of a genomic laboratory here on Monday, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin informed that the Kraken is a virus mutation that weakens when it infects the human body.
Mutation is a natural behavior shown by SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, to survive. As the virus mutates, the symptoms that it triggers become weaker.
In relation to this, Sadikin said that he is not too concerned about the emergence of confirmed Kraken cases in Indonesia.
Moreover, the latest serology survey in January 2023 has reported that 99 percent of the Indonesian population have developed protection against the virus on account of the government's COVID-19 vaccination drive and due to natural immunity gained from earlier infection, he highlighted.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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