Australia will instantly present 8,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses and demanding well being equipments to Papua New Guinea (PNG) as a result of spike in new coronavirus infections within the nation, prime minister Scott Morrison mentioned on Wednesday.
It can additionally request AstraZeneca and European authorities to grant entry to at least one million doses of the nation’s contracted vaccines for PNG, Morrison mentioned.
Australia may also droop all constitution flights for 2 weeks from Wednesday midnight and outbound journey to the nation, the prime minister mentioned:
“We’ll be suspending all constitution flights from Papua New Guinea to Australia, with restricted exemptions for medevac and different important flights.
We’ll be decreasing passenger caps by one-quarter from flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane, efficient at midnight tonight.
We’ll be suspending all outbound journey exemptions by Australians to Papua New Guinea, aside from important and demanding staff, together with humanitarian and medevac-related exercise.”
Of explicit concern is fly-in-fly-out staff who commute between PNG and the northern state of Queensland.
Morrison added:
“We will likely be beefing up the medical assist we’re offering by gifting important PPE to PNG. That features 1m surgical masks, 200,000 P295 masks, 100,000 robes, 100,000 goggles, 100,000 pairs of gloves, 100,000 bottles of sanitiser, 20,000 face shields and 200 non-invasive ventilators.
Our authorities may also be transferring instantly to present 8,000 doses of our Covid-19 vaccine shares from our home shares to assist the vaccination of entrance frontline well being staff in PNG from subsequent week.”
Australia’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, added that the scenario in PNG was deteriorating:
Over the past couple of weeks, and really quickly, the scenario has modified in Papua New Guinea.
Of the instances identified in PNG, half of them have been identified prior to now couple of weeks, from the start of the pandemic. Recognising that they didn’t have the assets for mass testing like we’ve got in Australia, so any quantity you see out of Papua New Guinea of instances and even deaths will likely be a significant underestimate. There’s a huge outbreak of Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea. We all know this from the locations which are in a position to be doing testing.
He says half the ladies who’re being admitted into hospitals in Port Moresby on account of being pregnant are optimistic. There are additionally a lot of healthcare staff contaminated, he says.
You possibly can learn extra concerning the scenario for pregnant ladies at Port Moresby Normal Hospital beneath: