PINA

The Niue government is considering cancelling an incoming Auckland flight on Monday, in light of New Zealand’s Delta-outbreak that’s seen cases rise to seven on Wednesday.

It isn’t clear how any passengers are booked to fly out, but Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi said his team was exploring all options in terms of its Covid-19 response.

New Zealand went to alert level 4 lockdown after a case was found in the Auckland community on Tuesday. The government confirmed it was the transmissible Delta variant on Wednesday and announced six more new cases.

Auckland has been placed on a seven-day lockdown, with the rest of New Zealand in level 4 for three days.

New Zealand has a one-way travel bubble arrangement with incoming travellers from Niue not requiring quarantine. Those flying to Niue, however, need to undergo a 14-day quarantine.

Tagelagi said the government would make a decision about next Monday’s flight soon, as it tracked the outbreak and information coming out from New Zealand.

“This is particularly important for the passenger flight scheduled for next Monday that we are currently considering,” Tagelagi said.

The small Pacific nation vaccinated almost 100 per cent of its population in July.

Tagelagi said recent travellers from Auckland to Niue posed a very low risk of bringing the Delta-variant to the Covid-free Pacific nation.

The last passenger flight from Auckland to Niue arrived on August 9 and carried 47 passengers.

Those passengers had been on the island for eight days and showed no symptoms of the virus.

As a result of the new case, Niue health officials ramped up their Covid-response by getting frontline workers tested.

Regular checks are being made to all recent passengers quarantining in home isolation and at Homofiti.

Tagelagi said the government was keeping New Zealand and Australia, which is also seeing increased outbreaks of the virus, in its prayers.

SOURCE: STUFF NZ/PACNEWS

Fiji has recorded 653 new cases of COVID-19 and eight new deaths Wednesday, increasing the total number of cases to 41,760 and 411 deaths since the outbreak in April.

Permanent secretary for Health, Dr James Fong said 462 cases are from the Western division and 191 cases are from the Central division in Vitilevu, Fiji’s main island.

“There have been 1,088 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 21,304 active cases. 13,652 active cases are in the Central division, 7,651 active cases in the Western division and one active case in the Northern division

“There have been 41,760 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021. We have recorded a total of 41,830 cases in Fiji since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 19,883 recoveries,” he said.

Dr Fong said the eight new COVID-19 deaths reported for the period of 14 -18 August. Five deaths were reported from the Central division and three deaths were reported from the Western division.

He said there have been seven more deaths of COVID-19 positive patients.

“However, these deaths have been classified as non-COVID deaths by their doctors. Doctors have determined that their deaths were caused by serious pre-existing medical conditions and not COVID-19.

“There have now been 413 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 411 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year. As of 17th August the national seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is 10. The seven-day rolling average for COVID-19 deaths per day in the Central division is 4 and in the Western division is six.

We also have recorded 230 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,” said Dr Fong.

He said there are currently 327 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital in Fiji.

“124 patients are admitted to the Lautoka Hospital, 44 patients are admitted at the FEMAT field hospital, and 159 admitted at CWM hospital, St Giles, and Makoi. 54 patients are considered to be in severe condition, and 15 are in critical condition.

The national seven-day average daily test positivity is 33.3 percent,” Dr Fong said.

As of 17 August 537,704 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the vaccine and 220,034 have received their second doses.

“This means that 91.7 percent of the target population have received at least one dose and 37.5 percent are now fully vaccinated nationwide. We are currently doing a mop up exercise of our first dose campaign, which will allow us to specifically target specific communities with low coverage, and subsequently also correct and update the total eligible population for our current vaccination programme,” said Dr Fong.

SOURCE: PACNEWS

One of Papua New Guinea’s chief health officers have warned the country’s low testing rates, high percentage of positive tests and low vaccination rates provide a “recipe for major spread of the Delta variant” after the country recorded its 12th case of the deadly strain.

Dr Daoni Esorom, the deputy controller of PNG’s national pandemic response, said officials were so concerned that low testing rates were masking a serious outbreak that they had ordered doctors at the country’s biggest hospital to swab all corpses of people who had died from unknown causes or who had respiratory illnesses, to see if they had Covid-19.

“Testing in PNG has also reduced since March, it is difficult to know how widespread the transmission of Delta variant is in the country,” said Esorom.

“If you have a low level of testing, and have a high uptake of detection of positive cases (at the moment it’s 12%) and you have a large pool of unvaccinated people, that is recipe for major spread of the Delta variant.”

“There is also anecdotal evidence from Madang’s Modilon hospital of increasing number of deaths of unknown causes and also at the Port Moresby General hospital. We have since sent out a circular sent to Port Moresby General hospital to swab all corpses with unknown causes of death and those with respiratory illnesses,” he said.

The Delta variant was first detected in PNG on 10 July after the captain of a ship from the Philippines and one of his crew tested positive and underwent isolation at the Port Moresby General hospital isolation facility for 15 days.

The country now had 12 confirmed Delta cases, the last three detected in Western province. A team had been dispatched to the province to help with contact tracing and give technical advice and guidance on how to respond on the ground. Similar measures were taken last week when cases were detected in Madang in the country’s north-east.

Papua New Guinea had officially recorded 17,827 Covid-19 cases and 192 deaths across the pandemic.

An outbreak in March saw PNG’s partners scramble to send emergency doses of vaccines to the Pacific nation, but the rollout of the vaccine had been slow, with fewer than 100,000 doses administered among a population of around nine million people. Health authorities would not confirm how many of those doses were first or second doses, but in July, just 60,000 people – or 0.6% of the population – had received their first dose, with just over 2,800 people having received their second dose.

Dr Rendi Moke, the Covid-19 committee chairman at Port Moresby General hospital, said they were on alert for a probable surge in Delta cases, at least for the rest of this year.

“We are communicating closely with NCD Provincial Heath Authority and St John Ambulance, with appropriate surge plans.”

Moke said there were fewer positive cases presenting to the hospital than during the March outbreak and the hospital currently only had two mild cases in its isolation facility, but they were bracing for a bigger outbreak.

“I’m not sure at this stage why there has been no surge since Delta case was first reported,” he said. “But we will remain vigilant.”

Despite growing concerns from health authorities, there was still a lot of scepticism about Covid-19 among the general population.

Esther, a primary school teacher from Port Moresby who did not wish to give her surname in case she was penalised by her bosses, said she did not think Covid-19 was real and the government was only talking about the Delta variant to make money from partner countries, who had offered support to PNG to combat Covid.

“I teach in a crowded classroom every day, my students come from all parts of the city, if Covid was real we would have long been infected.”

Justin Asasu, a 39-year-old man from Gulf, said he used public transport to go to work every day.

“Living in Gerehu, which has the biggest population in Port Moresby, we always rush and even push each other to get on the bus every morning and every afternoon. But still I haven’t been infected yet, I think it’s just bullshit,” he said.

Anand Das, ChildFund’s PNG country director, said vaccine confidence was a huge barrier.

“We have plenty of AstraZeneca vaccine supply available, but unfortunately we are seeing a lot of vaccine hesitancy in the community – mostly due to misinformation being spread on social media and people not understanding the real threat that the Covid-19 virus poses.

“There is still misinformation being spread that Covid-19 is like a flu, which means that people aren’t as readily turning up to get vaccinated. Many people are not convinced that Covid is a real threat to lives,” said Dass.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN/PACNEWS

Three Covid-19 Delta cases have been reported in Western Province and Papua New Guinea Health Minister Jelta Wong says the priority now is to ensure provinces are prepared to manage the highly infectious disease.

The Delta variant infections were confirmed by the National Control Centre (NCC) in a media conference Tuesday.

Presenting the Papua New Guinea health sector report in Parliament, Wong said it had been a difficult 18 months of preparing for and managing Covid-19 operations and enforcement that included quarantine of international passengers, contact tracing, isolating cases, updating the public and the vaccination rollout programmes.

“The current fear and concern is Delta, which is already in PNG. A nurse in Madang tested positive for Delta, suggesting that she could have been infected through border transmission with Indonesia. Contact tracing is underway to determine if Delta has spread,” he said.

He said frontline health workers should be protected through training, steady supply of personal protective equipment and vaccination though vaccine hesitancy in the health workforce was a challenge.

“We have three types of vaccines – the two-dose Astra Zeneca and Sinopharm, and the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J),” he said, adding that 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca were donated by Australia, 132,000 doses from the Covax-Facility and 146,000 doses donated by New Zealand through Covax, 226,000 doses of Sinopharm donated by China and 504,000 doses of J&J from the United States via Covax. AstraZeneca doses have been provided to all provinces and we are in the process of rolling out Sinopharm and J&J doses on demand.

“J&J will be rolled out in three tranches with border provinces first in the next three weeks accompanied by an intense communications campaign to encourage vaccination.

A total of 3 million doses through Covax is expected this year.

“This will cover 20 per cent of PNG’s eligible population. As infection risks grow, there must be greater acceptance of AstraZeneca which had a shelf life of six months and the J&J 4.5 months.”

Pandemic response deputy controller Dr Daoni Esorom said the yet to be confirmed causes of a number of deaths where Delta cases had been reported had “prompted us to issue a strong warning for people to be vigilant”.

“A directive was issued to the Modilon Hospital in Madang and Port Moresby General Hospital to run Covid-19 tests on the corpses and everyone that present themselves at the hospital with symptoms of respiratory illnesses,” he said.

“The three new Delta cases reported in Western means PNG’s Delta cases is now at 12. But the numbers could be higher due to lack of testing. To date, eight Delta cases were reported in the National Capital District, one in Madang and the three now in Western.

“The cases were mild to moderate and the infected have recovered, except the first case of the ship captain (a Filipino) who is still in hospital because he has other underlying medical conditions.”

Dr Esorom said currently, phylogenic tests were conducted on the three Delta cases from Western to determine whether they were the same virus ravaging Indonesia.

“We believe there is local transmission of the Delta in Kiunga and North Fly District. If we have a Delta surge, we will not be able to handle it,” he said.

“The level of Covid-19 testing has dropped since March and it is really low in the country at the moment. Our vaccination uptake too is very low. If we have low levels of testing, then we would not know the real extent of the spread of Covid-19 and Delta variant to help us in the response.

“With low vaccination, there is a potential of a high surge of Delta variant cases in the unvaccinated population. There are enough testing kits in provinces and health facilities should start triaging and conducting Covid-19 tests.

Meanwhile, Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS Jelta Wong says the new National Health Plan (NHP) 2021-2030 will require K42 billion(US$11.9 billion) to implement.

Wong said the plan was focused on strengthening primary healthcare and improving access for the rural majority with increased specialist care and greater community participation.

He said this would cover the cost of increasing the health workforce from 11,000 people to 25,000 by 2030 and key infrastructure investment including building new hospitals in Hela, Jiwaka, Central and Gerehu in Port Moresby and rebuilding hospitals in Daru, Kimbe, Manus, Mendi and Mt Hagen.

“As a responsible Government we are committed to fully support and resource the new NHP from 2022 fiscal year onwards in order to see a paradigm shift in the delivery of health services our people deserve,” he said.

Wong said the NHP was approved by the Government in principle on 14 July and was expected to be finalised shortly so that implementation could commence.

SOURCE: THE NATIONAL/PACNEWS

A Pacific health expert is advising the Pasifika and Maori community to heed lockdown advice and stay home after more cases of the Delta variant were confirmed on Wednesday in Auckland.

Dr Colin Tukuitonga, associate professor of public health at the University of Auckland, said Pasifika and Māori were the most vulnerable to Covid-19 and the Delta variant was “no joke”.

He said people only had to look at the outbreak in Fiji and how one case turned into more than 40,000 cases in four months.

Fiji currently had more than 21,000 active cases and more than 400 deaths since the April outbreak of the Delta variant.

“The risk to Pasifika and Māori is very high, with housing, overcrowding, diabetes and other underlying health conditions,” Dr Tukuitonga said.

“This is the real deal, it’s serious, it’s highly infectious and more effective than the original strain. One case can infect up to nine people, that nine can spread it to a further nine.

“The spread of the Delta variant is likely to be fast and rapid.”

The added risk to Pasifika and Māori was the low uptake in the Covid-19 vaccine.

As of 16 August, more than 1.6 million people had received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine – 95,000 of these were Pasifika – the lowest group uptake.

Maori, the second lowest uptake in first dose vaccinations, recorded 140,000.

Only 59,006 Pasifika people had received their second jab and 86,137 Māori out of more than 900,000 fully vaccinated New Zealanders.

“They are the most vulnerable at risk, and we should have made more efforts to vaccinate them.”

He had criticised the recent mass vaccination event in Manukau, a Pacific hub which did not serve the Pasifika community.

Of the nearly 16,000 people that received their first Covid-19 vaccine there, only 1301 were Pasifika and 1061 Maori.

“It’s a complex thing, but we have to try all of these things to try and overcome the lethargy, the lower rates of uptake by Maori and Pacific [people].

“It’s why I am making a big song and dance about these mass vaccination figures in Manukau. If anything, it’s making the inequities wider.”

Lockdown messaging was clear: people needed to stay home, in their bubbles, wash hands regularly and wear masks and practise social distancing when out to use an essential service, Dr Tukuitonga said.

“Pasifika people, we have been spared numerous times in this pandemic. It’s like the boy who cried wolf: people have heard this before.

“But, we should look at what is happening in Fiji and how quickly it can get out of hand. We need to pay attention to the message and stay home. We cannot be complacent.”

Dr Tukuitonga said the next 24-48 hours are crucial for New Zealand.

“In Fiji, their outbreak started off very small with one case. They admittedly didn’t go into level 4 like we’ve done, but the message is the same: stay home,” he said.

SOURCE: STUFF NZ/PACNEWS