Gov’t to Evaluate COVID-19 Swab Test Cost Estimation Proposed by BPKP

Head of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Doni Monardo (Photo by: PR/Teguh)

Head of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Doni Monardo has announced that Ministry of Health will evaluate the proposed cost estimation of the COVID-19 swab test by the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP).

“The BPKP has provided price estimation. For the contractual one, it is Rp439 thousand per specimen, while for the independent one, the BPKP proposal is Rp797 thousand,” Doni told reporters in an online press statement, Monday (28/9).

The evaluation, Doni stated, is intended to prevent any burden to the community as well as any harm to the entrepreneurs engaged in laboratory testing services.

Doni Monardo also revealed that the Government will also attempt to standardize masks for areas with a high risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“Every (mask) is useful, no mask is useless. However, for areas in the red zone, the risk of transmission is high, so we need to make a standardization,” Doni said in response to journalists’ questions about Indonesian National Standard (SNI) for masks.

According to him, the COVID-19 Task Force team and the expert team together with several companies have succeeded in making local production masks with a fairly high filter standard, which is between 70-80%.

“This has received recommendations from the BPPT (Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology) and in accordance with the standards in Germany. We will try to continue the development so that later the quality of the masks used by the community will improve,” Head of the Task Force stated.

Doni also asked people living in high-risk areas, especially in the red zone, to use quality standard masks to minimize the risk of transmission. (TGH/UN)

Translated by: Fairuzzamani Inayatillah
Reviewed by: Mia M. Bonaedy