Tuesday 30 June 2020
The health sector and the National Control Centre are currently increasing testings in the National Capital District to identify and deal with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) case.
Acting Secretary for Health and Deputy Controller, Dr Paison Dakulala, says this is important if the country is to mitigate and manage the covid-19 case within National Capital District and the country as a whole.
Dr Dakulala is also encouraging those with flu-like symptoms, fever , cough and shortness of breath or pneumonia symptoms, to come forward for testing to identify if it is covid-19 or not.
He was addressing the nation in his regular press briefing on the COVD-19, on the 9th day of the Niupela Pasin or the New Normal on Wednesday 25 June
In his regular press briefing, Dr Dakulala also confirmed the 10th COVID-19 case in Papua New Guinea.
He said one of the two active cases was repatriated on Tuesday, 24 June after his sample tested positive on June 18.
From the global point of view, there have been 9, 527,099 confirmed cases of covid-19 with 484,956 deaths .
In the last 24 hours there has been an increase of 173, 100 confirmed cases.
“In the Western Pacific region, Australia has total cases of 7, 557 with 36 new cases and 103 deaths; China, 83, 418 total cases with 4, 634 deaths and 42 new cases;
Philippines, has total cases of 32, 295 , with 1, 204 deaths and new cases, of 1, 143; Singapore has 42, 623, with 26 total deaths and 191 (new) cases; Indonesia, with 49,009 total confirmed cases, new confirmed cases of 1, 130 and total deaths of 2, 573.”
Papua province in Indonesia has 1, 779 confirmed cases and 10 deaths. There is an increase of 60 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours in the province.
Dr Dakulala has again urged every Papua New Guinean to continue to be vigilant.
When giving an update on the total number of covid-19 testings done, Dr Dakulala said that as of 21 June, the total number of persons tested for covid-19 was 6, 818 .
‘”Of the total number of sample results available, there were 5,555; total number of those that were negative, 5,545, while 202 two are still pending laboratory results.
“The total number of confirmed covid-19 cases to date, in the country is 10,” Dr Dakulala said.
Commenting on antibody testing , Dr Dakulala added that the seroprevalence study undertaken on antibody testing, covered 14,522 participants to determine whether or not persons have traces of the virus infections .
Meantime, the 9th covid-19 case in the country was repatriated to Australia on Tuesday 24 June 2020.
Dr Dakulala further explained, there has been a lot of scale up and work at Murray Barracks, to find out more about this case and what has happened.
Since June 20, 2020 , a total of 780 samples were collected from Murray Barracks , with 202 samples being tested at the Institute of Medical Research, and further samples sent to Brisbane on Thursday 26 June for testing.
Contact tracing was undertaken for case 9 after he visited several places in the infectious period and those included, among others, the Australian High Commission, Boroko Car Club, Pacific International Hospital and PNG Power.
“And so all these places have been looked at and tests have been done , or where necessary to be done, so we can find if there’s any evidence of the virus within the community setting.”
As for case number 10 , Dr Dakulala said , she is a military personnel at Murray Barracks.
“When the process of testings were done for the whole of Murray Barracks, this person was found to be positive. She became symptomatic about a week ago with a headache, and she became fatigue. Her tests results returned positive and she is in isolation at the Rita Flynn Court and that’s where she is and improving.”
Dr Dakulala added that all the other key contacts that she interacted with are going through the process of screening.
“Now what does this indicate? What does this mean in terms of covid-19 especially in relations to the National Capital District. What this means is that , maybe there is circulation of covid-19 in Port Moresby.
“The case reports no recent international or domestic travel, and so there is possibility that a local cluster is there, and we need to work through to find out where this may be.”
Dr Dakulala said the situation of covid-19 is now present in Port Moresby, and believed it could relate to community transmission.
He added that covid-19 could be circulating in NCD and urged all residents to be more responsible, cooperative and step up in the ways they deal with health measures, and above all, to continue to be vigilant.