All provinces reporting cases

THE number of Covid-19 cases reported last week does not reflect the actual situation on the ground which could be worse, according to a report.
The Covid-19 health situational report #69 of the period April 5-11 states that there were 1,565 new cases and eight deaths.
Due to logistical difficulties, lengthy test turnaround times, public holidays, clinic shutdowns, and low testing capacity in PNG, there had been delays in swabbing, testing and reporting results.
Thus the number of cases reported in the last week was an under-representation of the situation that was occurring.
Last week all the provinces reported cases including Manus which reported eight new cases, meaning the country’s 22 provinces had reported cases.
There are currently surges occurring in several provinces.
There have been extended delays in swabbing, sending samples for testing and receipt of results from laboratories, which means that even people meeting the case definition for the Covid-19 testing are not always able to be swabbed and receive their test results on time.
Meanwhile, large-scale population-level testing remains low across most of PNG.
As such, test positivity is high, with some laboratories reporting over of 30 per cent of tests returning positive results.
Due to testing limitations and inadequate staffing to conduct thorough contact tracing for all cases, the ability to conduct provincial transmission assessments is limited.
Community transmission is occurring throughout much of PNG, including Bougainville, East New Britain, Eastern Highlands, Jiwaka, Morobe, National Capital District (NCD), Chimbu, West New Britain, Western and Western Highlands.
The Covid-19 vaccination continues and 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in the country through the Covax facility.
Following a request by the Government on March 19 for international emergency (EMT) medical teams, several teams have arrived in PNG.
The EMTs include two Australian medical assistance teams based in the NCD, supporting Port Moresby General Hospital and the National Control Centre; Rubicon disaster response team from the United States supporting the Western Highlands health authority and Johanniter international assistance from Europe supporting St John Ambulance.