Papua New Guinea has confirmed eight new cases of Covid-19, all from Western Province.
OK Tedi mine Photo: Ok Tedi Mine CMCA Review
To date, the country has 479 total confirmed cases.
The new cases are from the Ok Tedi Mining company and while one case had fever and a cough the other seven were asymptomatic.
A joint team, composed of surveillance and case management experts from the National Department of Health and World Health Organization, was deployed to the Western Province this week to conduct field assessment and provide recommendations for outbreak response at the mine and in the province.
In announcing the new cases, Pandemic Response Controller, David Manning, said OK Tedi was continuing to test and isolate positive cases, quarantine contacts, and maintain the lockdown in the township of Tabubil in order to contain the outbreak.
So far 12 of the country's 22 provinces had reported positive cases. The death toll for PNG remained at five and the recoveries at 232.
The total number of tests pending laboratory results is 240.