Australia supporting Papua New Guinea s COVID-19 response
Media release
17 Mar 2021
Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister for Women, Acting Minister for Defence, Minister for Health and Aged Care, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for International Development and the Pacific
Australia is working with Papua New Guinea to support the Government’s response to a concerning spike in COVID-19 cases to help save lives and support our closest Pacific neighbour’s health system.
By helping Papua New Guinea, we are not only helping our Pacific family, we are keeping our nation and our people safe.
The Australian Government has agreed to a request for assistance and will partner with Papua New Guinea on a comprehensive support package to help it respond to the crisis.
4 Min Read
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections in hospitals in the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea were hitting its fragile health system “like a tornado”, with services shutting as staff fall ill, health workers said on Wednesday.
FILE PHOTO: A woman washes clothes on a wooden path between stilt houses at Hanuabada Village, located in Port Moresby Harbour, Papua New Guinea, November 19, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
Australia said it would send 8,000 vaccines to its northern neighbour Papua New Guinea, responding to a request for urgent assistance for the country’s small health workforce of 5,000 nurses and doctors.
We re mooting a sort of, not a stiff lockdown, but a nationwide isolation strategy to ensure that people are not moving around unnecessarily. Remain in your provinces, remain in your districts, remain in your villages, remain in your suburbs where you are. Marape indicated the restrictions on movement would coincide with upcoming school holidays, adding that the strategy would allow health authorities to take stock of the extent of the outbreak. So far only around 55,000 tests have been conducted in a national population of over eight million. Angau hospital closes temporarily The hospital in Papua New Guinea s second main city has been forced to suspend services due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.
We ll have to close the doors : Medical workers onenewspage.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from onenewspage.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Coronavirus crisis spirals out of control in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Pacific’s largest and most populous country, and one of the world’s most impoverished, is experiencing an uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak after appearing to have avoided large numbers of infections during 2020. The source of the new wave has not been identified.
Hundreds of cases in the past few days have taken the national total to 2,226 and 26 reported deaths, with the capital Port Moresby the worst hit. This represents a sharp surge since the end of February when 1,316 COVID-19 and 13 COVID-19 deaths had been reported.
According to a social media post by a senior gynecologist at Port Moresby General Hospital, Glen Mola, patients are dying of COVID-19 “every day,” suggesting the real death toll is far higher.