More than 10 Indonesian doctors died despite being fully vaccinated with 2 doses of vaccine

Medical staff take Covid-19 test samples from people in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Photo: THX/TTXVN

More than 10 doctors who received two doses of the vaccine have died from Covid-19, the Indonesian Medical Association said on June 25, as the Southeast Asian country struggles to cope with a surge in severe cases among health workers and new, more contagious variants of the virus.

Over the past week, the number of infections nationwide has surged, surpassing the 2 million mark on June 21, causing hospitalization rates to rise to more than 75% in the capital and many affected areas.

"We are still updating the data and determining whether the other deaths were vaccinated or not," Mohammad Adib Khumaidi, the association's head of epidemic prevention, told reporters.

Indonesia is dealing with multiple variants of the virus, including the Delta variant first detected in India. Clinical symptoms suggest this variant is responsible for the surge in cases in West Java.

"In West Java, the hospitalization rate has exceeded 90%. Some places are already over 100%. Our health system is about to collapse," said Eka Mulyana, a spokesman for the association in the province.

Dozens of cities in Central Java have also been put on lockdown after the Delta variant was detected in local tests. The surge in cases is believed to be due to millions of people traveling to the region at the end of Ramadan despite travel bans.

The mass movement of people has made it difficult to determine the source of the infection, said Ahmad Ipul Syaifuddin, representative of the Indonesian Medical Association.

"We have no clues to trace and find the first person who spread the Delta variant because the test results were given about three weeks after the above event," he said.

In a related development, senior Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan affirmed on June 25 that Chinese vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, and called on people to continue getting vaccinated to create community immunity.

Guangdong is the first province in China to report a case of the Delta variant, which has a shorter incubation period and a longer recovery time, according to Nanshan.

“During the outbreak in Guangdong, those who had been vaccinated were not severely ill, while all the severe cases were unvaccinated,” said Feng Zijian, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, according to Mr. Feng, there are currently no exact figures on how many of these people are infected with the Delta variant.