Saturday 17 October 2020
A 15-year-old girl in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province (EHP) has tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the last 24 hours.
This brings to 12 the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in EHP and 581 for Papua New Guinea.
The girl does not have symptoms of COVID-19 at the time of testing but she is a contact of a previously-identified COVID-19 case.
Controller of the National Pandemic Response, David Manning, said that to date, 27,003 people in PNG have been tested for coronavirus, with additional 281 samples pending laboratory results.
Meanwhile, 540 people have recovered from COVID-19 while 34 active cases are being isolated. The country’s death toll from COVID-19 remains at seven.
Fourteen provinces in the country now have confirmed COVID-19 cases:
| Provinces | Confirmed cases |
| NCD | 337 |
| Western Province | 202 |
| EHP | 12 |
| Central | 7 |
| Morobe | 5 |
| West New Britain | 5 |
| East Sepik | 3 |
| Milne Bay | 2 |
| East New Britain | 2 |
| Enga | 2 |
| West Sepik | 1 |
| New Ireland | 1 |
| Southern Highlands | 1 |
| Autonomous Bougainville Region | 1 |
Globally, since the start of the outbreak, there has been a total 39,573,043 confirmed cases and the death toll stands at 1,109, 070.
There was an increase of 412,017 confirmed cases in the last 24 hours.
In the Western Pacific Region, a total of 14 countries/territories had confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases for the region to 676,228 cases and 14,627 deaths.
Media contact: Chief Superintendent Dominic D. Kakas, BEM, DPS
COVID-19 Media & Public Information Joint Agency Task Force
Mobile: 75430557 email: ddkakas@gmail.com
Police email: ddkakas.policemedia@gmail.com
COVID-19 JATF email: ddkakas.covid19media@gmail.com