A senior doctor in Papua New Guinea is warning the country's low Covid-19 testing rates, high percentage of positive tests and low vaccination rates could lead to a quick spread of the Delta variant.
Hanuabada, Port Moresby. Photo: RNZ / Johnny Blades
The Guardian reports the deputy controller of PNG's national pandemic response, Daoni Esorom, as saying they now require doctors at the country's biggest hospital to swab all bodies of those who had died from unknown causes or who had respiratory illnesses, to see if they had Covid-19.
Esorom said testing had reduced since March making it difficult to know how widespread the transmission of the Delta variant is.
His comment comes after a range of senior clinicians in Port Moresby spoke to RNZ Pacific about lower admission rates due to Covid-19 at hospitals in PNG, although the lack of information about people infected and sick from Covid, as well as incomplete data on cause of deaths, could be hiding the real extent of the outbreak across PNG.
"If you have a low level of testing, and have a high uptake of detection of positive cases (at the moment it's 12 percent) and you have a large pool of unvaccinated people, that is a recipe for major spread of the Delta variant," Dr Esorom said
He said there was anecdotal evidence of increasing number of deaths due to unknown causes.
PNG has officially confirmed 17,832 Covid-19 cases and 192 known deaths.
The Delta variant was first detected five weeks ago and now there have been 12 confirmed cases.
An outbreak in March saw PNG's partners scramble to send emergency doses of vaccines but the rollout had been slow, with fewer than 100,000 doses administered among a population of about nine million people.