Durian. Indonesia’s West Java province will start working with private sector to carry out more polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test as it targets for additional covid-19 testing.
West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil suggested the involvement of private sector during a meeting with head of National Covid-19 Task Force Doni Monardo on August 6 in Jakarta.
According to Kamil, the cooperation will be vital to help the region in its effort to increase testing ratio.
“West Java intends to increase our testing ratio. We have delivered [in the meeting] our suggestion to increase the number of PCR test through improvement in resource or cooperation with private party,” Kamil said.
He admitted that limited resources have hindered the regional government to optimally carry out testing to its citizens. Cooperation in technological procurement, in particular, is an option that the province looks forward to.
“We have received some very good offers. As we are currently faced with limited capacity, we found that private can help with testing without us having to invest in costly technological equipment,” the governor added.
With almost 50 million citizens, West Java is the most-populated province in Indonesia. Currently, it has the capacity to carry out 5 thousand covid-19 tests per day. And Kamil targeted 50 thousand tests per week to get more citizens tested.
After the meeting, Monardo said he appreciated the suggestion and that other local government should consider similar scheme. He particularly said that private sector involvement can benefit laboratory development in the country.
According to Monardo, despite currently having 278 PCR machines, Indonesia does not have the adequate number of laboratory which makes the testing process considerably lengthy than expected.
