When Papua New Guinea took up its first Covid case in March 2020, the country held its breath.
There were acute fears about the country’s health system which is already overwhelmed and lacking resources, which has about 500 doctors to serve about nine million inhabitants, and which has already struggled to catch outbreaks of measles, drug-resistant tuberculosis and polio. handle.
But for a long time, the Covid crisis did not take hold in PNG.
Now, a year later, as vaccines allow many countries to hope for the end of the pandemic, the catastrophe experts predicted have finally arrived in Papua New Guinea.
“This is what we all feared last year when the pandemic started,” said Dr William Pomat, director of the Papua New Medical Research Institute.
In the past month, the number of confirmed cases in Papua New Guinea has skyrocketed, from less than 900 cases and nine deaths in early February, to 2,658 confirmed cases and 36 deaths in mid-March.
“We are seeing more people getting very sick from Covid-19 compared to previous waves,” said Matt Cannon, St. John’s Commissioner.
Authorities fear that the extent of the outbreak is being masked by low test rates – with just 55,000 tests done across the country throughout the pandemic – and that the actual number of infections could be many times higher.
‘Fragile health system’
Glen Mola, head of obstetrics and gynecology at Port Moresby General Hospital in the country’s capital, wrote in the Guardian earlier this week, warning that 30% of staff at the maternity ward tested positive for Covid and expressed his fears that they cannot keep the hospital’s doors open and women “may eventually die in the hospital’s parking lot”.
‘We have a very fragile health system and the tension is already being felt. We could collapse soon if we are not careful … It’s a ticking time bomb, ” said Dr Sam Yockopua, director of emergency medicine at Port Moresby.
Stigma around the virus still occurs in the country in the Pacific and many refuse to go test even if they show symptoms. Masks are only worn to enter buildings, but outside in the bustling city, people still walk around without masks while conspiracy theories and claims to immunity grow.
In the public market in Port Moresby, people complain that they have to wear masks and say that Covid-19 Papua New Guinea can not be harmed because of their skin color, a myth that arose early in the pandemic as a statement for the low infection rates of PNG.
‘Covid-19 will not affect us’
As Julie Osafa, 53, boarded a crowded bus from Port Moresby to Boroko, she rejected fears of spreading Covid-19.
‘PNG we are a Christian country, Covid-19 will not affect us. They are just lying to us, ”she said.
Her friend Anna John, 46, added that the Covid-19 vaccine was the end of time and that the vaccine would mark Papua New Guinea as the sign of the devil.
“They made Covid-19 so they could vaccinate us and put the mark of the beast, Satan, on us,” she said.
Even the family of an 86-year-old man suspected of killing Covid-19 called the virus a “government conspiracy”.
Australia has sought help from its nearest neighbor, promising to deliver 8,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and asking the European Union to divert one million doses of the vaccine to Australia instead. But many in Papua New Guinea still do not want to be vaccinated and are against the “national isolation” lockout that begins next week. Schools will close and travel will be banned.
Such beliefs and conspiracy theories prompted the country’s prime minister, James Marape, and other MPs to come forward, saying they would be the first to be vaccinated, and earlier this week offered the “guinea pig” for the vaccine.
‘For those who think Covid-19 is a joke or playing around; it is a global established pandemic, ” he warned.