Social taboos hinder fight against coronavirus

INDONESIAN authorities say hundreds of people have refused testing for the coronavirus as social taboos emerge as another obstacle to stopping its spread in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

Official data shows that Indonesia has the highest number of reported infections in South-East Asia, surpassing 49,000, while at least 2,573 people have died – the highest Covid-19 death toll in East Asia outside China.

Despite an acceleration in infections, this week hundreds of traditional traders in Bali and Sumatra refused to get tested, even as bustling, densely packed markets have emerged as common coronavirus infection points, officials said.

In Bali, authorities had aimed to test 2,200 traders in the area of Tabanan but on Tuesday, 200 traders failed to turn up.

“They are afraid of the stigma – that if it is discovered, they will have to be isolated,” Klungkung regent Nyoman Suwirta said.

Authorities at the Solok market in West Sumatra said 150 people there had also refused to be tested.

“Maybe there is fear or trauma. We need to explore why,” said Jasman Rizal, a spokesperson for West Sumatra’s Covid-19 Taskforce.

“The government must take persuasive action and educate them.”

Indonesia’s 270 million people are spread across 18,000 islands that span more than 5,000km.

Some villages in Java and Kalimantan have not allowed funerals for those who died from Covid-19, afraid that the burials could spread the virus, while local doctors have reported that some patients exhibiting symptoms have refused to go to designated coronavirus hospitals due to the stigma they might face.

In Sulawesi, one community forcibly retrieved the bodies of suspected coronavirus victims from hospitals so that they could be buried according to religious practices rather than Covid-19 protocol.

Sulfikar Amir, a disaster sociologist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said stigma arises from limited information.

“Stigma is an indicator of how communication and information dissemination in Indonesia hasn’t been successful,” he said.