Indonesia Still Free from Mers Virus: Deputy Minister

Jakarta (Antara) - Deputy Minister of Health Affairs Ali Ghufron Mukti said based on laboratory tests on a number of samples, Indonesia was still free from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) infections. Therefore, he said the government had not yet made a decision to ban Indonesian people from traveling to Saudi Arabia, such as what had been done by a number of other countries. "No travel restriction had been issued as yet. The WHO had not issued a recommendation for us. Until yesterday, we had not found any samples that tested positive for the MERS virus," the deputy minister said here on Friday. He said his ministry had tested 48 samples but none of them tested positive for the MERS virus. Yet, the deputy minister admitted he and his staff were still waiting for the results of the test on a number of other samples. Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had identified 32 new cases of the MERS disease, pushing the total number of infections in the country until date to 463. Four people died of the disease on Wednesday and five on Thursday, taking the total death toll in Saudi Arabia to 126, since MERS was identified two years ago, according to Reuters on Friday. (*)