Papua New Guinea is adopting a nationwide isolation strategy in a bid to stem a worrying surge in Covid-19 cases.
High community transmission is taking a toll on PNG's ailing health system and has prompted urgent action by neighbouring Australia which fears the outbreak in PNG will spread across the Torres Strait.
People at a typical PNG market in Boroko, Port Moresby. Photo: RNZ / Koroi Hawkins
Hundreds of new confirmed Covid cases in the last severals days have taken PNG's total number of cases well past two thousand and likely to hit 3,000 soon. The death toll is 26.
However with limited testing, community transmission could be far higher than the figures suggest in a number of urban centres and in provinces on the border with Indonesia.
Prime Minister James Marape has announced a nationwide isolation strategy from Monday, to stop people moving around and allow health authorities to take stock of the extent of the outbreak.
Authorities are bracing for a big upswing in cases in the coming weeks, after widespread mass gatherings over the past fortnight for Papua New Guineas to mourn the loss of the country's first prime Minister Michael Somare.
In Port Moresby where around half of PNG's 2,350 confirmed covid cases have been reported, the Governor of the National Capital, Powes Parkop said restrictions should be in place by the weekend.
"Anybody not having masks cannot be allowed to go to school, cannot be allowed to go to work, cannot be allowed to go to church, or cannot be allowed to go out anywhere. There won't be any public meetings. Meetings from twenty (people) below, you all keep social distance."
Powes Parkop, the governor of Papua New Guinea's National Capital District. Photo: Loop PNG
Parkop said the measures were designed to stop a worsening of the outbreak which is already overwhelming PNG's health system.
He said that if people sticked to the rules, there wouldn't need to be a full lockdown.
However adherence to public safety measures was loose during the various haus krai and funeral services for Sir Michael Somare.
Whether or not out these turn to be super spreader events, PNG's need for swift vaccination against covid has prompted action from Australia.
Eight thousand doses of the Astrazeneca vaccine from Australia are to be delivered immediately to PNG for frontline health workers, of whom over 120 have already tested positive in the capital
Australia's Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Zed Seselja said the doses would go to staff working in PNG's hospitals and dealing with covid on a regular basis.
"So they will be the priority because we need that health workforce. PNG needs that health workforce to be protected from covid," Seselja told ABC.
"We don't want to see an outbreak among health workers because that would make it so much more difficult to deal with the outbreak."
Lady Veronica Somare (seated in chair), along with family members and dignitiaries including PNG Prime Minister James Marape (standing on the right) attend the final burial of Sir Michael Somare in Wewak. Photo: PNG PM Media
Australia urges Europe to allow vaccines to get to PNG
Australia's prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged the European Union to divert a million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for urgent use in PNG.
"Now we are also making a formal request to AstraZeneca and the European authorities to access one million doses of our contracted supplies of AstraZeneca. Not for Australia, but for PNG, a developing country in desperate need of these vaccines.
"We've contracted them, we've paid for them, Morrison said.
Canberra's formal request comes two weeks after Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, enacting a recently introduced EU regulation for the first time.
"Obviously they've expressed concerns about the need in Australia versus the need in Europe but we would say we're going to gift these to Papua New Guinea," Seselja said.
"Papua New Guinea is a developing nation with perhaps greater challenges in dealing with covid than other advanced nations and needs these doses."
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile with some of PNG's main hospitals pulling back services due to local outbreaks, Parkop stressed the need for immediate action
"It is already overwhelming the limited health capacity that we have. And the situation is such that we cannot let it go beyond where it is now."
Australia has sent tents and medical equipment to isolate the most urgent Covid patients and to boost triage capabilities.
It's also suspended flights to Australia from PNG.
Fears of riot in PNG if main hospital forced to shut doors
Papua New Guinean media outlet EMTV reports that six patients who had tested positive to Covid-19 had forcibly discharged themselves from Mt Hagen General Hospital in Western Highlands Province, threatening to harm staff if they refused.
In the nation's capital, Port Moresby General Hospital is under such strain it has had to convert two of its four medical wards to Covid-19 isolation and treatment facilities.
The Sydney Morning Herald says the hospital has lost 10 per cent of its workforce, or 120 staff, because of the virus.
Port Moresby General Hospital Photo: POM General Hospital
Senior gynaecologist, Professor Glen Mola, told the paper the hospital lacks the "space and the facilities to cope with what's happening on the ground now."
He said by the time 50 per cent of staff test positive, the hospital will have to close the doors.
Professor Mola said it would reach a critical point where the doors have to close the doors and absolute chaos will be the result which would likely lead to riots.