Tuesday 27, October 2020
The COVID-19 National Control Centre (NCC) is strengthening the knowledge and skills of the front-line health workers responding to the coronavirus disease.
The National Department of Health, with support from the World Health Organization and UNICEF has already trained 5,116 health care workers throughout the country to respond to COVID-19.
A new series of trainings will be conducted at the district levels in the coming weeks to update skills in detecting cases, testing for COVID-19, tracing contacts, treating patients and building trust through communication.
As a kick-off activity, a Training of Trainers will be held this week to ensure the pool of trainers have the most updated information on COVID-19.
“Our health teams at the NCC continue to work tirelessly to ensure we have the knowledge and skills to manage this outbreak effectively. As long as the virus spreads globally, Papua New Guinea remains at risk so we should not let our guard down, ” Controller of the National Pandemic Response Mr David Manning said.
The pool of experts that will serve as trainers will come from the various clusters of NCC, such as from Clinical Management; Surveillance; Infection Prevention and Control; Point of Entry and Quarantine; and Risk Communication and Community Engagement.
“While we continue to beef up our hospitals and health clinics in preparedness to manage COVID-19 cases, it is equally important to train our health care workers to better respond to the pandemic,” said Mr Manning.
Meanwhile, no COVID-19 case has been reported in the country in the last three days. There have been 588 COVID-19 cases and seven COVID-19 deaths reported in Papua New Guinea.
To date, 29,002 people have been tested for coronavirus. Additional 92 samples are pending laboratory results.
There have been 548 people who have recovered from COVID-19 whilst there are 33 active cases that are being isolated.
Fourteen provinces (including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville) have confirmed COVID-19 cases:
| Provinces | Confirmed cases |
| NCD | 342 |
| Western Province | 203 |
| EHP | 12 |
| Central | 7 |
| West New Britain | 6 |
| Morobe | 5 |
| East Sepik | 3 |
| Milne Bay | 2 |
| East New Britain | 2 |
| Enga | 2 |
| West Sepik | 1 |
| New Ireland | 1 |
| Southern Highlands | 1 |
| Autonomous Region of Bougainville | 1 |
Globally, since the start of the outbreak, there have been a total 42,966,344 confirmed cases and the death toll stands at 1,152,604.
There was an increase of 435,528 confirmed cases in the last 24 hours.
In the Western Pacific Region, a total of 12 countries/territories had confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases for the region to 711,158 cases and 15,225 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