640 doctors in Indonesia die of Covid

At least 640 doctors in Indonesia have died of Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in March last year, authorities said.

The Indonesian Medical Association said on Wednesday that among the 640 victims, 347 were general practitioners, 284 were specialists and nine were resident doctors, reports Xinhua news agency.

It added that the majority of doctors who died of Covid-19 were men totalling 535 or 83.6 per cent, and 105 others or 16.4 per cent were women.

The highest number of doctors who died of the disease occurred in July this year, totalling 199 when hospitals were overwhelmed by a surge in cases due to the appearance of more infectious Delta variant, followed by January 2021 (65), December 2020 (59), and June 2021 (52).

The province with the highest number of doctor deaths is East Java (140), followed by Central Java (96), Jakarta (94), and West Java (94).

Indonesia has so far reported 3,082,410 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 80,598 deaths.