Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) crowded capital, Port Moresby, is the epicenter of the country’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.
The city recorded just five cases for all of January and 124 for last month. However, 108 cases have been confirmed in the first four days of this month as community transmission accelerated.
The country has reported only 1,492 confirmed cases for the entire COVID-19 pandemic, but the actual caseload is believed to be many times higher.
Fewer than 48,000 tests have been conducted across the country of nearly 9 million people since the beginning of the pandemic, and, in many remote parts of the country, there is no testing capacity at all.
The country has not yet begun a COVID-19 vaccination program.
Health authorities are also concerned about a spike in cases in the country’s huge western province, which links the country to Indonesia, and has a sea border with Australia.
Travel between the country and Australian islands in the Torres Strait is usually unrestricted, but has been suspended during the pandemic.
At least six cases detected in hotel quarantine in the Australian state of Queensland are in workers who have flown in from the Ok Tedi mine in PNG’s western province.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said that the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout would be fast-tracked across Australian islands in the Torres Strait.
“I’ll be going through and doing the whole community on Boigu, Saibai and Badu. They’re the three islands that are closest to Papua New Guinea,” Young said.
Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Paki Molumi said that the country’s already fragile healthcare system would likely collapse if the spike in COVID-19 cases surged further.
“We are testing all our staffs that have symptoms. There are many others out there in the community who have symptoms, but are not coming in to be tested and continue to spread the virus. That is a big worry for us,” Molumi said. “Soon our clinics and hospitals will be flooded with patients beyond our capacity.”
A netball stadium, converted as a COVID-19 clinic at the beginning of the pandemic, has been reopened to treat overflow cases.
The Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop said that the capital’s health authority did not have enough funding, personnel or resources to deal with the surge in infections, and warned that the capital would have to go into lockdown if confirmed cases reached 1,000.
Across the country, some hospitals have already closed, or closed departments because of funding cuts and surging demand.
Boram hospital in East Sepik Province has closed its emergency department. Mount Hagen hospital in the country’s highlands has received about one-third of the funding required to keep its services running, so it has been forced to close adult and children’s outpatient services from next week.
“All services provided at the hospital are essential, and whilst we do not want to close any of them, there just isn’t enough money to keep everything open”, Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority Board Chairman David Guinn said.
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