Jakarta. Indonesia on Thursday reported the first patient who tested positive for the Omicron variant.

The patient, identified by initial N, is a cleaning service worker at the athlete’s village in Jakarta that has been converted into the country’s biggest isolation facility since the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak in mid-2020, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.

“We sent data to the GISAID and it returned with confirmation that it was Omicron based on the genome sequencing,” Budi said, referring to the coronavirus global data-sharing organization.

He said three athletes’ village workers tested positive for Covid-19 on December 8 and the samples were sent to the Health Ministry’s research center for genome sequencing two days later. 

“Of the three cases, only one is detected as Omicron,” Budi said.

The three patients were asymptomatic and the latest PCR tests indicated that they already recovered, he said.