Jakarta - Indonesia is racing against time to contain COVID-19 vast outbreak through its attempts in tracing patients’ contacts and new breeding ground of the virus. Its leaders clearly push for any initiatives coming from private stakeholders and public society to jointly combat the pandemic fallout.

The act of working together for a mutual gain - end of the prolonged pandemic - was nicely exhibited as several private companies in the country have successfully produced locally-made COVID-19 test kits.

Meaning, Indonesia will soon be able to break free the total dependency on imported COVID-19-related products.

“Hopefully, we will soon be able to improve our capacity to produce the next locally-made test kits for PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). We have to be optimistic about it,” said Chief of Staff, Moeldoko, during his visit to a healthcare manufacturer, PT.Taishan, Friday (27/8).

So far, Indonesia is still importing COVID-19 detection tools including PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and Rapid Antigen Test.

The Ministry of Health has set the price ceiling for individually requested COVID-19 swab tests at Rp 250,000 for Java provinces and Rp 275,000 for outside the Java island.

In setting the cost standard, the government had gone through several careful considerations, including cost of sampling, sample processing and medical waste management.

However, the cost is still deemed quite expensive, promptly demotivating people to get tested.

According to Moeldoko, the production of local antigen kits would provide affordable and competitive prices. In addition, the production of domestic antigen equipment would likely increase employment rate amid this public health conundrum.

With the antigen swab test kits now being produced domestically, Moeldoko hoped testing and tracing rates will continue to soar to further break the chain of COVID-19 transmission in Indonesia.