22 September 2020
The weekly COVID-19 PNG Situation Report has reported that as of 20 September there have been 526 COVID-19 confirmed cases and seven deaths in Papua New Guinea.
Eleven cases were reported in the National Capital District and four from the Western Province with one reported death
The report from 14 to 20 September, also highlighted that the majority of the cases are male with ages ranging from one to 84 while the majority of cases are aged between 20 and 60 years.
Thirteen provinces have so far reported confirmed cases: they include:
National Capital District (311); Autonomous Region of Bougainville (1); Central ( 7); Eastern Highlands (1); East New Britain ( 2); East Sepik (3); Milne Bay (2); Morobe (5); New Ireland (1); West Sepik (Sandaun) (1); Southern Highlands (1);West New Britain (2); and Western Province (189).
Meantime, contact tracing is ongoing for all confirmed cases.
The report further highlighted that 56 percent of confirmed cases were asymptomatic, which means people were not showing any symptoms of the virus during swabbing.
This could mean the contributing factors to the large percentage of asymptomatic cases were due to resilience and health seeking behaviors in the country, and lack of reporting of past symptoms, among others.
It is further confirmed from the report that there is a large – scale community transmission of coronavirus disease in the country.
With low testing currently being experienced in the country, there has been a reduction in reported confirmed cases in the past seven days.
However between 14 to 20 September, there were 15 new confirmed cases reported from two provinces. NCD reported 11 cases in the past seven days, which indicates community transmission in the city.
Western Province on the other hand, recorded four cases in the past seven days, which spread from a localized cluster of confirmed cases at the mine site in the province that continues to report cases.
“With a lack of testing in the community, it is difficult to determine extent of transmission in the Western Province, particularly in communities surrounding the large cluster,” according to the report.
As highlighted in the report, NCD could expect an increase in the cases, from ongoing population movement and low compliance to non-pharmaceutical interventions.