a man standing in a room: Health workers in a practice exercise at Sanglah hopital in Denpasar, Bali, on February 12. Indonesia claims it has no coronavirus cases but has reportedly tested only 136 people © Provided by Daily Mail Health workers in a practice exercise at Sanglah hopital in Denpasar, Bali, on February 12. Indonesia claims it has no coronavirus cases but has reportedly tested only 136 people Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cast doubt on Indonesia's claims that it is free of coronavirus raising fears for Bali holidaymakers. 

Mr Morrison told radio station 3AW on Friday that Indonesia's zero infection rate was most likely due to their low testing capability.

When asked if he believed Indonesia's claim to have zero cases, Australia's Prime Minister told radio host Neil Mitchell that it was almost certainly to be a function of Jakarta's ability to test. 

'It's a very big country with a lot of islands and it would be very difficult to be able to give absolute assurances about those numbers,' he said.

Mr Morrison said he did not mean to disrespect Indonesia but it had a different health system to Australia with a different capacity to provide assurances. 

a group of people standing in front of a large crowd of people: Hundreds of Australian tourists queue at Denpasar airport, Bali, on February 21. Experts say it is likely the coronavirus is now spreading undetected through the Indonesian archipelago © Provided by Daily Mail Hundreds of Australian tourists queue at Denpasar airport, Bali, on February 21. Experts say it is likely the coronavirus is now spreading undetected through the Indonesian archipelago Experts have said Indonesia is not deliberately lying but they have just not detected the cases that are highly likely to be there. 

Indonesia has a population of more than 267 million people but as of Saturday morning Indonesia had reportedly tested only 136 people for COVID-19, all with negative results.

Neighbouring countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Australia have smaller populations than Indonesia but have conducted at least ten times more tests, and all have reported scores of cases. 

New South Wales alone, with a population of just over 8 million has tested more than 2200 people for the virus, finding four cases. 

There are currently 25 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Australia. A total of 15 of these cases are reported to have recovered and the remaining cases are in a stable condition .

Nine of the people affected travelled on the Diamond Princess cruise and were repatriated from Japan. 

Worldwide more than 2,800 have died from coronavirus and the number of cases worldwide has surpassed 83,000.

About 1.3 million Australians visited Bali in 2019 with about 25,000 people flying between Australia and Bali each week.

a crowd of people watching a colorful umbrella: Bali is a holiday mecca drawing 1.3 million Australian tourists last year. It also drew 1.2 million tourists from China, the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak © Provided by Daily Mail Bali is a holiday mecca drawing 1.3 million Australian tourists last year. It also drew 1.2 million tourists from China, the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak Estimates suggest more than 100,000 people have made the trip since the Covid-19 outbreak began towards the end of December.

Bali is also a top tourist spot for China, the epicenter of the coronavirus, with about 1.2 million Chinese tourists travelling to the island in 2019, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Indonesia imposed a China travel ban on February 5 denying entry and transit to foreigners who have been in mainland China during the previous 14 days due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

Fears are growing that coronavirus could be spreading in Bali without being detected.  

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Smart Traveller website has not so far issued any coronavirus travel warning for Indonesia or Bali. 

The Smart Traveller advice for Indonesia as of Saturday morning did say there had been a small outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in travellers returning from Kuta.   

Australian National University associate professor of Indonesian Politics Greg Fealy said Indonesia was not lying about having any coronavirus cases, they just hadn't detected the cases that were there. 

'The potential risk for their own population (of lying) would be far too high,' he told Radio 3AW on Thursday.

'I think more likely it's the case that there are coronavirus patients there and they just haven't been detected.' 

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Indonesia's Health Ministry disease control and prevention secretary Achmad Yurianto, said earlier this week that a Japanese man who had been diagnosed with coronavirus after returning home from a holiday in Bali had been infected with 'Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2' – or SARS-CoV-2 – not Covid-19, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

SARS-CoV-2 is the name the World Health Organisation has given to the new coronavirus while Covid-19 is the name of the disease caused by the virus, so they are effectively the same thing.

Indonesia's Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto repeated that the archipelago nation was free of the virus on Thursday despite a spate of suspicious deaths.

Mr Putranto claimed that Indonesian prayers were keeping the country virus free. 

University of Queensland professor of virology Ian Mackay has said he is sceptical of Indonesia's claim not to have any COVID-19 cases, saying 'it's a big country' and likely to have undetected infections.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Harry Nespolon agreed, saying anyone returning from Bali and experiencing flu-like symptoms should be tested for the virus.

'Indonesia's got a population of 267 million people, it has almost no effective screening - they say they do, but they probably don't. If you're looking at the stats, there should be some cases in Indonesia,' he said.

 In Australia, GPs have been told to test Australians for coronavirus if they have travelled to Bali in the past two weeks and have flu symptoms.

NSW and Victorian health authorities updated their advice earlier this week to test for the virus if patients had been to Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, or Indonesia and show signs of 'a clinically compatible illness'.

'This recommendation is based on the volume of travel between these countries, Australia and China, and the current epidemiology of Covid-19,' the updated advice said.

 
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