Australia will immediately supply 8,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses and critical health equipment to Papua New Guinea (PNG) due to the increase in new coronavirus infections in the country, premier Scott Morrison Said Wednesday.
It will also ask AstraZeneca and European authorities to grant access to one million doses of the country’s contracted vaccines for PNG, Morrison said.
Australia will also suspend all charter flights from Wednesday midnight for two weeks and travel to the country, the prime minister said:
‘We will suspend all charter flights from Papua New Guinea to Australia, with limited exemptions for medevac and other critical flights.
We will reduce the passenger limit by a quarter of flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane, which is in effect tonight at midnight.
We will suspend all Australian releases for Papua New Guinea on free travel, except for essential and critical workers, including humanitarian activities and medicine. “
It is of particular concern that flight workers commute between PNG and the northern state of Queensland.
Morrison added:
‘We are increasing the medical support we provide by providing essential PBT to PNG. It contains 1 m surgical masks, 200 000 P295 masks, 100 000 gowns, 100 000 glasses, 100 000 gloves, 100 000 bottles of disinfectant, 20 000 face shields and 200 non-invasive fans.
Our government will also immediately move to give 8,000 doses of our Covid-19 vaccine stock from our local stocks to support the vaccination of frontline health workers in PNG from next week. ”
Australia’s medical chief, Paul Kelly, added that the situation in PNG is deteriorating:
In recent weeks, and very quickly, the situation in Papua New Guinea has changed.
Of the cases diagnosed in PNG, half have been diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic in the last few weeks. If you admit that they do not have the means to do mass tests like we have in Australia, the number you see from Papua New Guinea would be a huge underestimation, even cases of death. There is a major outbreak of Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea. We know this from the places that can be tested.
He says half of the women admitted to hospitals in Port Moresby due to pregnancy are positive. There are also a large number of health workers who are infected, he says.
You can read more about the situation for pregnant women at Port Moresby General Hospital below: