A Collaborative Study between SITH ITB and Labkes Jabar: One Year Into The Covid-19 Pandemic in Bandung

February 26, 2021 - ( update : 01-04-2021 )

By Adi Permana

Editor Adi Permana

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Covid-19 outbreak has been hitting Indonesia for almost a year. Tireless efforts have been made to combat the dangers during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is why School of Life Sciences and Technology (SITH) ITB had collaborated with the West Java’s Health Laboratory (Labkes Jabar) and the Bandung City Health Office (Dinkes) to held a webinar discussing the efforts and innovations done to fight Covid-19 which various efforts and innovations that have been made to eradicate COVID-19 which had been hit one-year mark in Bandung.

This webinar held on Wednesday (24/2/2021) presented two speakers, namely the Head of the West Java’s Health Laboratory drg. Ema Rahmawati, M.KM., the Head of the Bandung City Health Office dr. Ahyani Rakasnagara, M.Kes., Dr.rer.nat. Marselina I. Tan, and Azzania Fibriani, Ph.D. from ITB. The event began with remarks by the Dean of SITH ITB Dr. Endah Sulistiyawati and Vice-Rector of Research and Innovation Prof. Dr. I Gede Wenten.

In the first session, Ema talked over the Jabar Digital Service (JDS) application which is under the management of Covid-19 examining laboratory in West Java. She said that West Java’s Provincial Health Laboratory began using SIMLab Pikobar on June 15, 2020.

SIMLab Pikobar is an application run by Pikobar Health System super-application. This application displays various statistical data such as the number of positive and negative tests, also various other details such as the proportion of people testing positive, the average age of Covid-19 patients, and the changes of CT values’ monthly average based on results obtained from a sample. This application also will be developed and refined repeatedly for continuous improvement so that it can be integrated with equivalent applications run by Pikobar and Allrecord which belong to the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia.

Ahyani continued the presentation by addressing the results of the Covid-19 tests in Bandung City. 29.521 Covid-19 patients in West Java who were still under treatment. Also, West Java had 162.670 cured and 2.178 deaths. She also showed other various data such as the reproduction number of Covid-19 in Bandung, the number of hospital isolation rooms, the percentage of the isolation rooms’ availability, and the results of PCR and PDT testings.

Meanwhile, Marselina delivered the analysis of the results of the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) Coronavirus in Indonesia. The data displayed were the frequency of clades per province, monthly distribution of mutations and hotspots, also hotspot mutations in the S gene, N gene, NSP12, and any other new variant of SARS-CoV-2. Summing up, the mutated strains of Covid-19 which had been analyzed in Indonesia were the GH, GR, G, L, and O clade. Clade GH appeared to become the major circulating virus in Indonesia.

The last presentation was provided by Azzania who explained the analysis of the Covid-19 patients’ transcriptomic data. In this session, she elucidated various things about the Covid-19 effects on the human body. She described how DNA stores genetic information, how a gene is expressed in a transcriptome, and how Coronavirus infects the human body along with the levels and symptoms.

This study aimed at carrying out genomic and transcriptomic studies in patients who had moderate symptoms and patients who had no symptoms. On a final note, there were differences in the Covid-19 WGS data, co-infection data, and transcriptomics data between patients with moderate symptoms and patients with asymptomatic and presymptomatic infection. Hopefully, this study’s results could be used for a better understanding of the pathogenicity of Covid-19.

Reporter: Yoel Enrico Meiliano (TPB FTI, 2020)
Translator: Zahra Annisa Fitri (Perencanaan Wilayah dan Kota, 2019).