PNG at high risk of Covid-19 as other countries report cases

The National Main Stories
Paison Dakulala

By LULU MARK
PAPUA New Guinea is at a high risk of a coronavirus intrusion as more countries report cases reaching them, acting Health secretary Dr Paison Dakulala says.
Dakulala said it had reached 58 countries outside China, with 7,169 cases and 104 deaths as of yesterday.
In China there were 80,026 cases including 2,912 deaths.
He said many of the countries reported community transmission of the virus.
“That means, it is not anymore linked with exposure to China.
“This is a serious concern,” he said.
It could be declared a global pandemic but only the World Health Organisation could make that call.
He said the dynamics of the outbreak was changing hence there was a need for the continuous scaling up of its surveillance in the country. He said the Health Department and government agencies had scaled up the Covid-19 preparedness.
A paper was prepared to update the National Executive Council (NEC) on the emergency response – “where we are, what needs to be done and how to scale up in the event of a pandemic”.
Dakulala said this would help in facilitating the process captured in the K45.33 million approved by the NEC.
He said equipment such as surveillance cameras would be bought from the funds released last week.

7 comments

  • The PNG National Health Department must seriously take it into consideration to come up with preventive measures to address the virus if anything happens.. we need to plan ahead and act on it, no wait til the virus reaches our shores..

  • I have been advocating strongly on this Disease – Our Border countries have reported cases and it now the government of the day to really step up and do something.
    Equip the front liners Health workers with PPE’s and there should be strict regulations in place for our tourists.
    Awareness is lacking – we hardly see any awareness on TV and Radio on this Disease. Remember that most of the PNG population are illiterate..How are we gonna teach them/make them aware?…Sore ya

  • Medias and News Papers with the consult from Health Department should daily inform public about the preventive measures regarding the corona virus.. Organizations should also inform their staff it and the preventive measures and encourage them to pass the massage to to their family members and relatives even those at the villages.These should be one the quicker ways to spread the sms . And instead of waiting for the government to come
    #prevention is better than cure..

  • This is a call from us locals please do something quickly before it reaches our country we need to prevent it If it comes to PNG we will lose a lot of lives as we travel in plans, buses and spend time in groups and it will be very difficult to manage..

  • Our Land Borders between PNG and Indonesia needs to be strictly control as these are the regions that our people use eveyday to conduct business across the border in Indonesia.

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