Minister says 14 Chinese stopped from boarding flight

By REBECCA KUKU
FOURTEEN Chinese nationals have been stopped from entering the country, says Health and HIV/AIDS Minister Jelta Wong.
Wong said the 14 had flown from China to Thailand, then to Malaysia and were trying to fly into PNG but were stopped.
“They were asked to quarantine themselves for 14 days and get a medical clearance before they can be allowed to the come into the country,” he said.
“So the Government is treating this seriously, we have placed travel restrictions that will require people with a travel history of recently been in affected countries to be quarantined and medically declared free from the Covid-19 before they board a plane into our country.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Health has increased its security and surveillance in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and so far have screened a total of 24,820 people coming into the country, Health secretary Dr Paison Dakulala said.
He said of the total, 2,485 people were persons of interest.
However, 672 have been cleared while1,485 were still under surveillance and were being monitored.
“So far, we have investigated 13 people, 12 tests are negative and one is still pending,” he said.
“And let me stress again at this point in time that there is no Covid-19 in the country.”
Dakulala also said they would now start imposing strict checks on persons travelling in from not only China but Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Italy and Iran.
“We will also be imposing strict checks from people coming into the country from our very close neighbours New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia, who now have confirmed cases,” he said.