PINA

Fiji has recorded 156 new cases of COVID-19 Sunday, increasing the total number of cases in the island nation to 47,795 with 506 deaths since the outbreak in April.

Permanent secretary for Health, Dr James Fong said 79 cases are from the Western division, 73 cases are from the Central division in Vitilevu, Fiji’s main island and four cases are from the Eastern division on the island of Kadavu.

“There are four new COVID-19 positive cases in Kadavu and 13 new COVID-19 positive cases in Naviti, Yasawa Islands. All these individuals have been isolated.

“There have been 696 new recoveries to report since the last update, which means that there are now 15,997 active cases. 4,522 active cases are in the Central Division, 11,164 active cases in the Western division, four active cases in the Northern division (Macuata) and 307 active cases in the Eastern division (all in Kadavu).

“There have been 47,795 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021. We have recorded a total of 47,865 cases in Fiji since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 31,041 recoveries,” said Dr Fong.

He said there are no new COVID deaths reported

“However, there are two deaths currently under investigation.

“here have now been 508 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 506 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.

Therefore, as of 31 August, the national seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is four. The seven-day rolling average for COVID-19 deaths per day in the Central division is one and in the Western Division is three. We also have recorded 319 COVID-19 positive patients who died from the serious medical conditions that they had before they contracted COVID-19; these are not classified as COVID-19 deaths,” Dr Fong explained.

He said there are currently 204 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals in Fiji.

As of 04 September, 566,210 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the vaccine and 299,943 have received their second doses. This means that 96.5 percent of the target population have received at least one dose and 51.1 percent are now fully vaccinated nationwide.

SOURCE: PACNEWS

Health authorities in West Sepik in Papua New Guinea are seeking help to manage the COVID-19 pandemic as the number of cases rise.

They are also advocating for provincial lockdown or a partial lockdown to prevent a possible second surge of COVID-19 cases. It had a lock-down early this year when it had its first surge.

Director for WSP Public Health and Incident Manager Dr Trevor Kelebi said in a situation report submitted to the National Coordination Centre (NCC)that the six-bed isolation ward at the Sandaun Provincial Hospital was full throughout the month of August and is managed by one health extension officer and junior nursing staff and need added clinical manpower support.

“We are advocating for a provincial lock-down during Provincial Control Centre (PCC) or a partial lockdown with strict compliance to Niupela Pasin, vaccination and mandatory swabbing,’’ said Dr Kelebi.

He said West Sepik has so far confirmed a total of 594 positive cases of which seven died, including two in the month of August, and they are expecting a surge in the coming weeks

It is also difficult to know the real situation in the province now due to low testing, especially with swabbing hesitancy which poses a challenge to effective contact tracing. The other big challenges facing West Sepik’s response to COVID-19 lies in high hesitancy towards vaccination and lack of adherence to Niupela Pasin.

“A total of 490 vials (10 doses per vial) of AstraZeneca vaccines were received on 22 April 2021 which expired on the 29th of July, 2021 and additional 200 were received in early August which will expire on 30 September, 2021,’’ he said.

Furthermore, he said all health facilities and business houses’ attempts to strengthen the ‘no mask, no entry’ policy at all entry points remains a challenge due to so many social media critics having a big influence on the public.

Together with the Sandaun Provincial Inter-Agencies, the Provincial Health Authority has submitted the West Sepik Surge Plan on 04 August, 2021 to NCC and relevant government agencies.

With its close proximity to the border with Indonesia and the threat of current or future outbreaks of epidemics or pandemics, the WS PHA is also seeking a new isolation and quarantine site to be constructed on state land. Currently, they are renting a private property for quarantine and isolation for COVID-19 asymptomatic or mild cases with their contacts which the WSPHA says is not sustainable.

In response to the WS PHA request, the Deputy Controller for the National Pandemic Response, Dr Daoni Esorom, has confirmed receiving the WS PHA report at the National Coordination Centre and will be providing support to the PHA.

Dr Daoni confirmed that an Emergency Medical Team is now being put together with the clinical management and the Emergency Medical Team clusters at the NCC that will consist of an emergency specialist doctor, four clinical nurses and an Infection Prevention Control (IPC) nurse to support the PHA team respond to the surge.

He also confirmed that WHO has three staff already on the ground in Vanimo to support the PHA.

“We will support the WS PHA team to respond to the current surge. Some of the positive samples have been sent to Melbourne for genomesequencing which will confirm whether they are delta variant cases.

“I strongly urge all the PHAs to be prepared for any surges in the delta cases. This is the time that all PHAs must be preparing themselves for surges in the delta variant cases. I urge all the PHAs to increase the surveillance, testing, IPC and to have in place enough ICU beds to respond to any delta variant cases. All hospitals must have enough oxygen in the ICU and hospitals to respond to any increase in the number of cases,” Dr Daoni said.

SOURCE: PNG GOVT/PACNEWS

Kiribati started to rollout the Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines on Friday.

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, Minister of Health and Medical Services Dr Tinte Itinteang, Chinese Ambassador to Kiribati Tang Songgen and other officials attended the ceremony held in Tarawa, capital of Kiribati.

The vaccines, which arrived in the south Pacific island country on Wednesday, were donated by China to help the country better prevent an outbreak of the pandemic.

Tang said the international community should join hands to cope with the tough challenges brought by the pandemic, adding that China has always promoted greater access and affordability of COVID-19 vaccines in developing countries.

He said the Sinopharm vaccine, with good safety and effectiveness, has been approved by the World Health Organisation for emergency use. These vaccines will offer strong protection for Kiribati people against coronavirus, and provide support for the country’s economic and social development.

Itinteang thanked China for the donation. He said Kiribati, despite the current zero-case status, must be well prepared for any possible invasion of the coronavirus, and the vaccination is the key to reduce hospitalisation, death and severe cases.

The China-donated doses will help Kiribati vaccinate more residents, Itinteang said.

SOURCE: XINHUA/PACNEWS

To reach Nakida village in the highlands of Fiji, Dr Losalini Tabakei and her colleagues hiked for hours, up and down mountains, through forests, down muddy slopes, across rivers and along treacherous ridges with steep slopes of bamboo forest on either side.

Their supplies – clothing, medical equipment and, crucially, the Covid-19 vaccines they were bringing to administer to the remote community of just 60 people – were sent separately on horseback; the vaccines in refrigerated boxes, the rest in bags wrapped in plastic. The horses took the longer but flatter route to the town along the river.

The team, made up of Tabakei, a junior surgical consultant at CWM hospital in Fiji’s capital of Suva, as well as other surgeons, nurses, consultants, registrars, a police officer, interns and a local health worker, made the trip as part of the Fiji government’s campaign to “leave no one behind”.

The country is grappling with a devastating Delta outbreak that has seen more than 500 people die and 47,000 cases – more than 5% of the country’s population of about 900,000 people. The Pacific nation has the dubious honour of having the highest per-capita rate of infection at times over the past month.

The trip, which Nakida locals had assured them would take a maximum of three hours, took the group five hours.

“No one was mentally or physically prepared,” she said laughing, a week later, on the phone from Suva, where she has just completed rounds at the hospital. “The guides, they are not allowed to tell us how far we have to go, because according to their belief that would make the trip longer. They’d answer ‘We’re almost there’ when we were about one-tenth of the journey.”

Their trip was not made easier by the fact that they accidentally left all their snacks for the trip in the bags that were put on the horses, meaning all they had was water – and one grapefruit, which one of their team spotted, climbed a tree to pick and shared with his colleagues.

Videos of the expedition – which show the team joking and teasing one another as they went, and chanting the catchphrase “Reaching the unreachable, leaving no one behind” – were shared by the country’s health minister, Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete, as a sign of Fiji’s collective effort to vaccinate its entire community from Covid-19. The drive seems to be bearing fruit, with 95 percent of all eligible people having received one dose of the vaccine, and about 51.1 percent having received both doses.

There were just 25 people at Nakida who needed vaccinating and Tabakei says the villagers were very pleased to see the group arrive.

“They were worried about us making it safely and they had prepared a lavish dinner for us,” she says. After showers and dinner, and despite their fatigue, the medical team delivered their awareness talk about Covid-19 and the vaccine.

“They were very receptive and they were very happy to see visitors and to see that we cared enough to make that trip and reach their village,” Tabakei says.

“In the question and answer sessions they mentioned that they had already started experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 weeks back, so even in these remote villages – and we saw this all over Naitasiri – despite being removed, where there’s a track this virus will find its way. It sort of reinforced our purpose going there to educate them, vaccinate them.”

Tabakei and the other health workers visited roughly 20 villages in Naitasiri that week. The format of their visits is the same: perform cultural ceremonies, give an awareness talk about the virus, particularly addressing conspiracy theories. Then the team swab people showing symptoms of Covid, provide vaccinations for those who want them, and attend to other health concerns.

The reception to the group, and attitude to the vaccine, is entirely dependent on the attitude of the village chief to vaccination, Tabakei says. In villages where the chief is positive, 90-95 percent of villagers will be vaccinated; in villages where the chief is sceptical, that number drops to 40-50 percent.

It helps that Tabakei, whose mother is from a village bordering Naitasiri province, speaks the local dialect.

“Especially the elderly, they tend to be very reserved. They don’t always have access to information, so when they see someone from province who comes into their village and says, ‘This is good for you, this will help you’ – and we saw a few very real examples of that, just after talking to them – [people are] saying, ‘OK, I’m going to get my jab now’ and they line up to get vaccinated,” she said.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN/PACNEWS