Closing down of nursing stations and medical clinics operated by retail pharmacies will see more than 200,000 Papua New Guineans struggling to access basic health services.

This is because 80 percent of the aid posts in the country are no longer in operation while public health facilities in urban towns are currently stretched.

Health Department Secretary and chairman of the Pharmacy Board and Licensing Authority of PNG, Dr Osborne Liko, gave a 14-day notice in a circular to retail pharmacies to close down nursing stations and medical clinics because their operations are illegal.

Sources within government confirmed with the PNG Post-Courier that this was an administrative directive from the National Executive Council issued to the Health Secretary to implement.

Dr Liko also told the Post-Courier that the circular came about to address illegal operations of nursing stations by retail pharmacies where some were abusing their licence with selling beverages and cigarettes in the same precinct, which is illegal and abuse of conditions of licence of pharmacy retailers.

He said an earlier advice from the Medical Board was raised in 2015 to the Pharmacy Board but was “unscrupulously ignored” to date and the public had taken it for granted that this illegal situation was the norm.

Another warning was issued in July this year.

Safe practice licensing
Dr Liko said registrations of nursing stations for the purpose of therapeutic benefits and health practitioners for competency of safe practice and licence are the jurisdiction of the Medical Board of PNG and Nursing Council of PNG.

“Such practices have had double jeopardy to those clinics and medical centers and hospitals that had complied with Medical Board of PNG and paid their full fees and comply with registration standards were unnecessary disadvantaged by unscrupulous practice of nursing stations illegally operated by the pharmacy retailers industry,” he said.

“All medical drugs must be prescribed to patients by a qualified licensed medical practitioner rather than a nursing officer without causing significant complications to patients’ outcome in the recovery process,” Dr Liko said.

“We have evidence of treatments from such nursing stations by those who are not qualified and incompetent to prescribe such prescriptions from these illegal nursing stations to patients with diabetes, antihypertensive medications and other chronic infections that have had more harm than good for ongoing recovery and safety for those who had taken short cuts for profit and convenience rather than safety.

“In such practice we had more harm, particularly with some dangerous medicines such as misoprostol that caused a death of a young teenager earlier this year 2021.

“When such medicines were not prescribed and managed by specialists rather than having such dangerous drugs readily available without proper vetting and scrutiny by qualified specialist and prescribed by specialist with proper safety guidelines of therapeutic benefit.”

Dr Liko said many of these patients had had fatal outcomes when admitted to hospital over the years.

Other retail pharmacies when reached for comments declined to comment.

‘Unclear’ says major provider
However, as one of the largest health care service providers, City Pharmacy Group Limited through the founder Sir Mahesh Patel, said the idea behind this circular was still unclear as not all pharmacies were practising illegally.

Sir Mahesh said that instead of making a blanket ruling on all pharmacies, the board should only target those operations as the nursing stations were used as referral paths. After a diagnosis was made, patients were referred to the appropriate public or private clinics for further evaluation.

He said CPL had paid all its licence fees with nurses who were registered.

“We have not had any cases in our history. All our nurses are registered with the nursing board and the HEOs are registered with the medical board.

“They are well qualified with an average experience of five years at least.

“The fact remains that the majority of the population cannot afford the high fees charged by private hospitals and clinics thus avail our services. Also the public health system is inadequate, which is a known fact across the country,” he said.

When asked if the pharmacy group intends to begin closing down its stations, Sir Mahesh indicated the group had written to Health Authorities to meet and have a dialogue, while also seeking legal advice.

Grace Auka Salmang and Melisha Yafoi are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop has announced that there will not be a total lockdown of Port Moresby.

He said the decision was made after much deliberation with key stakeholders in the city and the national government.

“Instead we will focus on maintaining and upgrading the three-pronged approach we are currently pursuing to respond to the third wave of the covid-19 pandemic,” Parkop said.

• READ MORE: Port Moresby police unable to enforce the Pandemic Act 2020
• Other PNG covid crisis reports

NCD Metropolitan Superintendent Gideon Ikumu said it would also be a logistical nightmare for police to arrest people who breached the covid protocols because they did not have the facilities to lock up all those people.

He said city police would only encourage city residents to observe the new normal protocols of wearing facemasks, observing social distancing and other measures as part of their policing routines in the city.

Superintendent Ikumu said this as the City Hall announced on Monday that it would not enforce a complete lockdown as many people had expected, despite the rocketing number of deaths and covid-19 positive cases in the city since September.

“There is an absence of regulations to implement the specifics of the Pandemic Act 2020 and we cannot arrest someone for simply not wearing a mask as an example,” he said.

Defining legislation
A regulation is the subsidiary legislation that defines the essence of an Act.

It also provides guidelines that show the way the Act needs to be implemented.

Superintendent Ikumu reiterated Governor Parkop’s appeal to city residents that to stop unnecessary deaths and to get “us to overcome the crisis at hand, it needs everyone to step up and do their part”.

“For those who are still reluctant or afraid of the vaccine for one reason or another, the “Nupla Pasin protocols and testing must be your foremost priority on a daily basis,” he said.

“We will do our best to encourage compliance but it is up to each and every person in the city to comply.”

According to the John Hopkins University global covid dashboard, Papua New Guinea has 27,895 confirmed cases of the virus and 335 deaths, but these figures are widely believed to be an underestimate.

Grace Auka-Salmang is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

Papua New Guinea’s biggest referral hospital has reached a crisis point as the covid-19 pandemic positivity rate surged drastically to 85 percent yesterday.

Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi in the National Capital District (NCD) has revealed that three children with covid-19 had died three days ago.

He also said yesterday that the hospital had recorded the highest deaths on arrival — 50 on Monday, 40 on Tuesday and 30 on Wednesday.

• READ MORE: ‘Ground Zero’ in Goroka where the gloom of death hangs in the air
• Lockdown considered for PNG’s capital
• Other PNG covid crisis reports

This was a sign that the hospital was reaching a crisis point with services teetering on collapse unless they are immediately given more support.

“PMGH now we have reached a crisis point. The first surge we were able to manage, the second surge we were able to manage but this third surge which is the delta variant is very aggressive, and we are reaching a very critical term,” he said.

“Aggressive means in the first surge we saw a lot of older people getting infected, and so with the second surge.

“This one, we are getting very young people — we lost three kids three days ago. This surge is not discriminating with anyone, its affecting everybody.”

Another dilemma
The hospital is also faced with another dilemma — this time over dead bodies that urgently require money and paper work to be completed to pave the way for their burial.

The deceased include a staggering 300-plus dead bodies with many of them covid-19 related cases and the hospital does not know where it will put the new bodies that are coming out from its covid-19 wards.

Dr Molumi also said 94 of their medical staff were infected with the virus, 52 medical and 42 nursing staff of the hospital had been infected by the virus. They must be given days off for home isolation, further reducing manpower.

“We are faced with a crisis where cobvid patients are presenting in large numbers with shortness of breath requiring manpower to assist,” he said.

“The few staff left are overworked and fatigued and we need to recruit more staff urgently.

“Our staff are facing unprecedented mental health challenges, as we witness death tolls never seen in the history of our hospital.”

“Our AusMat triage tent in front of the PMGH is full, emergency department is full, the isolation ward is full, the covid ward is full and all other beds in different sections, including the maternity wing allocated to covid are also full with covid-19 patients.

‘Dying before reaching hospital’
“People are dying without reaching the hospital. Our mortuary recorded 50 deaths on admission on Monday, 40 deaths on admission on Tuesday and 30 deaths on admission today, with more expected tonight.

“We have never recorded such a high number of deaths on admission.

“The morgue is filled, with bodies packed on top of one another. Right now, 300 plus bodies are at the morgue.

“Three more refrigerated containers have been installed to store dead bodies, but this is not enough. Some bodies were left outside for days because we just don’t have space in the morgue.

“A mass burial of 200 bodies is being planned this week to create more space. The bodies are both covid positive and unclaimed non-covid,” he said.

“So we as the city’s hospital serving over a million population in the national capital district, Central Province as well as parts of Gulf — we are reaching a crisis point.

Matt Cannon, chief executive of St John Ambulance, also said the service was in crisis.

“I think it’s fair to say that the ambulance service at this stage is in a crisis level,” he said.

“Challenges they need to cater for increasing number of patients… our ambulance service is also seeing a stretch!”

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist.

The flowers outside the building are in full bloom — green, red and yellow, sparkling with hope.

You are welcomed by the usual cool mist in Kol Ples Goroka.

But that welcoming coolness dissipates fast when you get close to ground zero.

• READ MORE: Only half of PNG’s MPs vaccinated against covid, reveals Post-Courier
• PNG and Fiji were both facing covid catastrophes. Why has one vaccine rollout surged and the other stalled?
• Other PNG covid crisis reports

Inside the Goroka Provincial Hospital, in stark contrast, the gloom of death hangs in the air.

Sister Lynnette Babah has never seen anything like this before in her entire nursing career.

The past few weeks have been the most difficult in her life, testing her mettle, her physical willingness, her mental resolve.

Death is everywhere.

The Angel of Death
It seems like the Angel of Death, with a sickle, has swept into the Eastern Highlands and has a bed at the door of the hospital.

Death pervades the wards, the beds — even the cleaning agents cannot mask the stench of cadavers, and life here, even for the caretakers of the sick, is a misery, pockmarked by tears of grief.

It is easy to see why. Covid-19 and its delta strain are draining every ounce of life out of the victims.

The covid that every Papua New Guinean thought they are immune to is finally wreaking havoc with a rising death toll in Goroka, Mt Hagen and the capital Port Moresby.

Despite warnings, despite calls to vaccinate, many victims, both educated and illiterate, have fallen victim to the virus.

Last week, I was one of few journalists from Port Moresby that accompanied a team to visit Goroka.

I can tell you, it was nothing like normal. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.

A shocking reality
In all of my reporting career, this is the first major ground zero medical emergency I have walked into and I was shocked into reality by what I was witnessing.

In Papua New Guinea, it is common to be drawn to a moment of euphoria or sadness; you see a mother or a child crying in a flash of gladness or sadness, your tears will follow that emotional outpouring.

You know when you find a hardened nurse tear up, you instinctively know something is not going right.

The loss of lives, desperation of the situation, sleepless nights, lack of rest, lack of medicine, equipment, even the simplest things like a pillow, they all add up to melting the heart of a helper.

Our arrival with the Team Sana medical team sort of sparked the built-up emotion in Sister Lynette and she burst out in tears.

She was comforted by the doctors and as she gained strength, she said with tears in her eyes: “It’s heartbreaking to see my patients struggle and die every day.

“In one day, we have 9 to 15 patients pass away and in one day we also struggle to save a life, it is really heartbreaking for me as a nurse to see them die in pain every day.”

A distraught mother
Outside, a distraught mother, Mary Anoixa (pronounced Anoiya), and her 10-year-old daughter, Josephine, are covered in black charcoal and have been camping outside of the Goroka Hospital morgue for two weeks.

Their home is a long way away in Lufa district.

They are here hoping to see her elder son’s face for the last time before he is put into the coffin and taken away for burial.

Her 29-year-old nephew, Nicky Anoixa, passed away two weeks ago from a severe attack of the covid-19 at the Goroka Hospital.

She shed a tear as she remembered the last time, she saw her nephew and held him before he was taken to the critical covid-19 ward at the Goroka Hospital on September 30.

She has camped at the site for the last two weeks, hoping to catch a glimpse of son’s body but as covid-19 nurses and doctors have advised her, it will never be possible.

They told her she would only be able to see her son being taken out of the morgue and placed into his coffin before the ambulance takes him away for burial.

The closest the family will get to see will be his coffin driven by the ambulance to his burial site.

Managing the virus surge
Governor Peter Numu said his province was managing the covid-19 virus surge despite all the struggles they were facing financially and socially.

Numu said he was thankful that he had allocated an approved budget of K1.5 million (NZ$605,000) to help with the covid-19 operations in the province, hence he was appealing to all other leaders to lend a helping hand.

He said September 30 was a day in his political life that he would never forget — he witnessed 10 people die of the coronavirus and received a phone call that 10 more of his family, officers and supporters had also died.

Numu urged people to change their attitudes so that they could better address the surging pandemic virus.

“Covid-19 is real, I made a visit there to the hospital and I saw for myself people dying,” he said.

“Like one day, I will never forget that day, 10 people died, five at Goroka Hospital, two dead upon arrival, and three deaths from Kainantu – a total of 10 reported cases.

“But on that day, I also received a lot of phone calls that about five or six people, unreported, died and these are healthy people I am talking about, some are my coordinators, some my supporters, some even my family members… many people died leading to this day.

“We want a complete lockdown for a period of 14 days; I know the people will say it is against their constitutional right and that we are suppressing them, but these so-called constitutional rights are qualified rights, which must also be consistent with other laws, like in this case we have the Pandemic Act, so when you want to exercise your right, you must know that the Pandemic Act is there to control the spread of Covid-19.

“Any measures put in place are law under the Pandemic Act.”

A strange stench
It is 11am as we enter the Goroka Hospital and the strange stench of the dead can still penetrate through the medicated disposable masks we are wearing.

And as if this is not bad enough, no one wants to talk to us as everyone we come across is “running” (not walking) to and from every ward and every building in the hospital.

Further, the feeling of entering a contaminated hospital is something one would not even dream of or dare do, but how can we as journalists avoid that?

But what is worse is the sound of the ambulance sirens going in and out of the hospital – some coming in with patients in critical condition and others carrying dead bodies, while others carry coffins out for burial.

And this has been the norm for the last two weeks– every 30 minutes, 20 minutes and 10 minutes.

The front of the hospital is piled up with all kinds of medical supplies from donor partners, organisations, students and others.

At the back of the hospital, there is a gate that never closes – opens 24/7 because buses, cars, and even ambulances come in every interval to bring in patient

s, some dead-on-arrival, while others make it to see another day, while the rest die from shortage of oxygen or have arrived late and not in time to be saved.

The clock is ticking
Everywhere in all these wards, someone is struggling to breath; an oxygen cylinder has run dry, a patient is screaming, families are begging for doctors to save their loved ones and next door someone has just passed on — there is wailing all over

The minute chores, hourly chores and a day’s chores are all about covid-19, staff are all dressed in PPEs — some quite worn out; everyone is masked and many are in complete apparel and rushing to and from every corner of the covid wards, emergency and morgue like zombies … the clock is ticking and they have to race against time in order to save a life.

Around the morgue area, family members sit in anticipation, hoping to see their loved one’s face for the last time – even knowing very well they cannot open those body bags.

There is wailing and mourning, people covered in black soot, some turn up with the best blankets to cover their loved ones stored away in those two big, refrigerated containers.

And one thing is for certain, the heartbreak they are going through is nothing compared to that of a normal dead – for the last time they see their loved ones is when they bring them to the wards, when they pass on, relatives cannot even say goodbye — they do that after they have been put in a coffin and driven away in their ambulances — that has been the norm.

• A seven-member team of PNG’s National Emergency Medical Team (EMT) — Team SANA — was deployed to Goroka on a 14-day mission to support the Eastern Highlands Province covid-19 response.

Eastern Highlands — now a high-risk highlands province — is currently experiencing a surge in critical covid-19 cases, and Team Sana’s presence on the ground is proving vital in helping the province manage its situation, while providing temporary relief to staff on the ground.

The team has been working with the provincial health authority to build capacity on the clinical management of severe covid-19 patients, incorporating safety and infection prevention control measures, isolation, conducting hands-on training for severe patient management and vaccine advocacy among health workers and patients.

According to the John Hopkins University covid-19 dashboard, Papua New Guinea has 24,041 confirmed cases and 266 deaths, but experts say the real toll is far higher. Only 0.7 percent of the country’s nine million people are fully vaccinated.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist who accompanied the Team Sana mission.

Half of Papua New Guinea’s parliamentarians are still not vaccinated despite widespread calls from the government, the business community, churches and civil society for people to get vaccinated.

A Post-Courier survey over the past few weeks showed that only 57 Members of Parliament out of 109 — two MPs have died — have been fully vaccinated.

• READ MORE: The PNG covid crisis

The survey carried out by the paper and published in the weekend edition indicates the following:

• National Alliance – all 9 MPs fully vaccinated
• Pangu Party – 22 vaccinated out of 38 MPs
• United Resource Party – 5 vaccinated out of 8 MPs
• Social Democratic Party – 2 of their MPs fully vaccinated
• Our Development Party – 2 of their MPs fully vaccinated
• People’s National Congress Party – 3 out of 14 MPs vaccinated
• United Labour Party – 1 out of 8 MPs recorded being vaccinated

Most of the two-men and one-man party members have also received their vaccinations, while others have refused, or have not been reachable.

It was confirmed that most of the party leaders have been vaccinated, but their MPs have not.

When asked what their reasons were for refusing the vaccination regimes, their answers varied.

Some MPs ‘scared’, some read ‘too much’ social media
Some members told the Post-Courier they were scared, others said they were still sceptical of getting jabbed, some said they were still deciding, while a few said they read too much on social media and were not sure.

Three others joked they did not want to “turn into beasts”.

This comes as the nation is hesitant in its vaccination drive and the country’s National Control Centre and government struggle to administer its approved vaccinations.

The results also come as the Control Centre now battles a surge in covid-19 cases and the Delta variant with 10 provinces now declared high risk — including Western, Chimbu, Sandaun (West Sepik), Enga, Western Highlands, Hela, Eastern Highlands, Jiwaka, Morobe and Southern Highlands.

Some of the leaders from these high risk provinces have not been vaccinated, according to the Post-Courier survey.

The newspaper has a list of all the MPs that have been jabbed and those that have not been vaccinated to date.

All 252 people reported to have died in Papua New Guinea from the covid-19 pandemic have been unvaccinated, says Health and HIV/Aids Minister Jelta Wong.

He also said that 99 percent of covid-19 patients in hospitals around the country were also unvaccinated.

He told Parliament yesterday that “100 percent of the patients are in critical care and requiring oxygen”.

• READ MORE: Tough choice for employers over covid workplace health and safety
• Other PNG covid crisis reports

“Official cumulative numbers of those affected by covid-19 stand at 23,365, with 252 lives lost,” he said.

“But the official figures are nowhere near the actual numbers in the provinces.

“Just like other developing countries which have [gone through] a third wave of the covid-19 delta variant surge, the undeclared number of infections and deaths is much higher.”

Wong said some people had died in villages.

Cause of death ‘likely unknown’
“It is unlikely that the cause of their deaths will be known and will not be recorded,” he said.

He said the healthcare system had been underfunded for decades and Papua New Guinea was still a developing country “facing the challenges of data collation”.

Wong pointed out that the increasing number of sick or dead people now was motivating many to get vaccinated.

“Demand is rising considerably,” he said.

“So much so that while a few months ago we had vaccines expiring, now the government [wants] to bring new doses before the end of the year.

“There is a significant amount of personal protective equipment distributed to the provinces.

“But the lack of visibility on usage and remaining stockpiles is proving a challenge and better data and feedback systems are being developed.

“It includes the Health Department building a dashboard to better monitor this data.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed guidelines on covid-19 therapeutics which is regularly updated, he said.

Miriam Zarriga is a reporter for The National. Republished with permission.

Two deaths with two patients in critical condition is the status at one of Papua New Guinea’s leading hospitals as the covid-19 pandemic continues to create havoc along with an acute shortage of operational funds.

Mount Hagen Provincial Hospital in Western Highlands Province — owed K1.6 million  (NZ$650,000) by the central government in Waigani — struggles to maintain its ongoing clinical services as well as provide treatment and care to the escalating number of suspected covid-19 cases, said the Highlands Provincial Health Authority.

According to WHPHA acting chief executive officer Jane Holden, the hospital will definitely shut down come Christmas if funding is delayed further.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

She said although the hospital was stretched to its limit, it tested 27 positive covid-19 cases in the last four days, bringing the number of new cases since Saturday to 109.

This left only five isolation beds unoccupied out of 20 available isolation beds.

“Two patients died last week and two are critically ill, Holden said.

“Although we cannot get the results for the whole genome sequencing, we must assume we are dealing with the delta variant, given the rapid increase in numbers and severity of their illness.

Funds for two weeks
“We only have enough covid-19 funds to support another two weeks work despite sending a request in late June to the Department of Health.

Holden said if there was no funding, the hospital would shut down its services before Christmas.

“This will commence next week with the closure of consultation clinics for any new patients and the discharge of others over a couple of weeks.

“We will also need to ask patients coming from other provinces to seek support locally rather than come to Mt Hagen Hospital.

“Over the next four to six weeks, beds will be closed as patients are discharged home.

“Further reducing services at the hospital just puts increased pressure on rural health services, and we know that they are also stressed.

“Church Health Services have not had funding support this year either and are under significant pressure as well,” Holden said.

“This is a very difficult time.”

According to statistics from National Control Centre, Papua New Guinea is reporting 1000 new cases a month — an increase of 50 percent, averaging 500 new cases a month.

In the last three weeks, 649 cases were confirmed, with 18 deaths reported in the same period. Of this, one medical doctor had died out of the 53 health workers who tested positive with covid-19.

‘Biggest’ threat to Pacific in century
Meanwhile, in New York, US, Prime Minister James Marape told a Pacific Islands Forum meeting last week that covid-19 presented the biggest threat to the health and wellbeing of Pacific people and the world in more than a century.

He told a virtual PIF Leaders Meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA): “Never before, has the full Forum membership simultaneously been in a crisis wherein members face significant challenges to prepare, respond and mitigate the immediate and associated threats posed by the covid-19 pandemic.”

Marape said a unified collective regional approach to address covid-19 through the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway had ensured countries remained relatively unscathed from the health impacts of covid-19, with six countries still covid-free.

“The emergence of the more transmissible strains of the virus is concerning, with clear evidence that the coping capacity of some of our members’ health systems is struggling to keep up with the rapid spread of the virus,” he said.

“There are some assurances provided through vaccine-powered recovery, however, in places where vaccines are not yet widely available, or in communities where people have not been vaccinated despite availability, the virus could still spread rapidly.

“When forum leaders met last month, we re-emphasised the importance of ensuring the distribution of safe and effective vaccines in the Pacific region and reiterated our call to global leaders to support the equitable and affordable distribution of safe and effective covid-19 treatments and vaccines to all Pacific peoples, facilitate early economic recovery and to call for a WTO TRIPS waiver for covid-19 vaccines.

“We also committed to collectively ensure comprehensive vaccination coverage is achieved for our Pacific peoples by setting a target of 80 percent of the eligible population for the Pacific region subject to country readiness by the first quarter of 2022.”

Rita Peki is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

Covid surge threatens PNG’s Mt Hagen hospital with ‘closure by Christmas’https://t.co/KT37BGLGeP
Mount Hagen Provincial Hospital in Western Highlands struggles to maintain its clinical services and provide treatment and care to the escalating number of suspected covid-19 cases pic.twitter.com/KbnPWEuFgo

— Pacific Security Hub (@PacSHub) September 28, 2021

Papua New Guinea’s acting Prime Minister Soroi Eoe says the specific lockdown measures planned for the covid-19 spike in some provinces has not been released as stated this week because the Pandemic Control Centre was not ready.

This is because there of co-ordination needed to happen over the next seven days to allow for this.

The National Isolation Strategy and the government’s plan in relation to the covid-19 spike in the country will be released later.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid spike reports

Eoe assured business houses in the capital Port Moresby and across the nation that there would not be any lockdown, but strict protocols and measures would still be in place.

He said there would not be any nationwide lockdown — just in selected provinces — and that the measures to be announced would be “friendlier, but strict”.

Eoe said all reports circulating on social media were “fake news”, basically because they did not come from an official authority and that the government would officially announce its position.

Dispel social media reports
“I think the actual framework was already given yesterday, to dispel the notion that’s been propagated in social media that the government’s plan to bring in a state of emergency will shut down the operation of the government which is not true,” he said.

Eoe said the government would be selectively looking at three provinces that had an increase in covid-19 cases — Western Province, Eastern Highlands and West Sepik. It would also closely monitor Enga, Morobe and the National Capital District as announced on Wednesday.

“We are taking into consideration the views of the people, but at the same time, emphasising the seriousness of covid-19 … we need to vaccinate our population,” he said.

“We are not locking down businesses, that’s our lifeline — come on, we can’t survive without business, they are the ones that keep the economy going, that’s what this assurance is.”

Gorethy Kenneth is a PNG Post-Courier senior journalist.

A Papua New Guinean doctor evacuated from Daru in Western Province to Port Moresby last Tuesday has died – the latest medical person to succumb to the covid-19 pandemic in the country, reports The National.

The doctor was flown to Port Moresby after she suffered severe distress, according to Deputy Controller of the National Pandemic Response Dr Esorom Daoni .

“Daru Hospital has lost three people to the covid-19 in less than two weeks,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

“These are people who are still in their prime age, but that is what the covid-19 does.”

There are 18,808 confirmed cases of covid-19 in Papua New Guinea with health workers making up 9 percent, or 1705.

A number of them have died.

He said there was a possibility it could be the delta variant which was spreading in Western Province.

“Unless it is proven otherwise, we can say that (her death) is due to the delta variant because the virus spreads fast and is deadlier for those with comorbidities and the elderly,” he said.

Dr Daoni reminded people around the country to follow public health safety rules: washing of hands, covering of mouth when coughing, avoiding crowded places, and physical distancing by 1.5 metres in public places such as markets and shops.

“When you protect yourself from diseases like covid-19 by following the health measures, you are not only looking after yourself and your loved ones but also protecting people who would look after you – the health workers,” Dr Daoni said.

Daru Hospital chief executive officer Dr Niko Wuatai said the hospital was preparing wards in case of a large number of admissions.

He said Daru was experiencing a third wave of the pandemic. As of Tuesday, the hospital had reported 89 positive cases in two weeks.

Republished with permission.

Ten people have died from Papua New Guinea’s covid-19 pandemic and 203 new cases were reported in five days from September 9 as National Pandemic Response Deputy Controller Dr Daoni Esorom made a red alert call on Independence Day “super spreader”  events.

“Papua New Guineans are just not heeding our calls to adhere strictly to public health protocols like masking up and keeping social distancing at the mass events,” he said.

“There is a high risk of a surge in infections in the coming weeks and months.”

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid reports

Esorom urged provinces to be proactive in their covid-19 response.

“There were shows in Goroka, Enga, Western Highlands and other provinces despite the National Control Centre advice not to proceed.

“If the events result in a surge of covid-19 cases, the provincial health authorities and administration must be fully responsible. These are super-spreader events,” he said.

“Money will not run away. At this time [in the face of the Delta variant threat] gatherings should be limited.”

Appeal to the people
He appealed to the people — whether they believed that covid-19 was there or not, believed in conspiracy theories or in not being vaccinated — there were two strategies needed to prevent a big surge in the country.

“The first is observing strictly to the Niupela Pasin (New Normal) which was nothing more than listen and follow.

“Niupela Pasin is a public health and social intervention that in the long-term will definitely reduce the number of cases.

“At the same time they are cost effective strategies.

“It will not cause a lot of money but in the event that we do not follow them,there will definitely be a big surge of the covid-19 infections in Papua New Guinea.

“If we have to get ourselves out of the epidemic, we need to vaccinate ourselves, and everyone.”

In an update on Wednesday, NCC Incident Manager Dr Melinda Susapu said two covid-19 deaths were reported on Monday on the back of 130 new cases (120 in Western, three in Hela, two in the National Capital District (NCD) and one each in Morebe, Eastern Highlands, New Ireland, Madang and Jiwaka).

Deaths now 204
She said the two deaths were from Western Province which brought the total cumulative deaths to 204.

The total number of covid-19 cases in the country was 18,542 of which 17,892 had recovered and 448 cases still active.

“NCC had yet to receive the samples that were sent to the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, Australia, to confirm whether the covid-19 cases reported were of the delta variant because the institute was not able to run tests for the samples (Australia is also experiencing a surge in cases).

“Of the 130 new cases, 24 were re-infection cases (22 in Western and two in NCD which means these people had contracted covid-19 some five or more months ago and these data will help in understanding the transmission dynamics of covid-19 and whether it was characteristic of Delta.

“Only eight of the 22 provinces are reporting regularly,” she said.

Susapa said due to delays in the reports the actual situation in provinces could be grossly underestimated.

Reporting gaps
“The surveillance teams are constantly identifying reporting gaps and are working with provinces to ensuring the discrepancies are minimised,” she added.

Susapu said the total number of covid-19 tests done to date in the country was 182,403 “which is very low”.

Esorom said it was important that health facilities were conducting testing and people should go for testing because testing was necessary “for us to understand the extent of the spread and for us to respond appropriately”.

“It is taking too long for the genome sequencing of samples sent to Australia,” he said.

“Hence, the NCC is working with partners to enable the PNG Institute of Medical Research (IMR) to do that by next month.”

Lulu Mark is a reporter for The National. Republished with permission.

Police Commissioner and Controller of the PNG National Pandemic Response David Manning has authorised the release of new measures to address the covid-19 pandemic in the country on the eve of the 46th Independence Day.

Manning said these new measures, which came into effect yesterday, September 15, 2021, had been made in response to the continued threat of covid-19 while “ensuring continuity and normalcy” in life.

The ban on alcohol sales on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nationwide still remains in force.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid articles

The key changes are to international and domestic travel as well as social and business.

For international travel, the new measures are:

• New Quarantine periods: Seven days quarantine for incoming persons who are fully vaccinated and 14 days quarantine for partially vaccinated persons. PNG citizens and permanent residents who are unvaccinated are to be quarantined for 21 days. Any foreign national who is unvaccinated will not be allowed entry into PNG. Children under the age of 18 years who travel with a parent or guardian will be quarantined for the same period as their parent or guardian. Children under the age of 18 who are unaccompanied will be assessed and quarantined on a case-by-case basis. Children under five years are exempted.
• These new quarantine periods do not apply to all persons currently in quarantine – unless provided an exception which will continue to apply.
• Approvals to arrive in PNG are valid for 60 days rather than the previous 90 days;
• Approvals to enter PNG shall not be provided to persons travelling to PNG for the principal purpose of holidaying, vacationing or similar activity.
• All persons travelling to PNG must have a valid covid-19 test 72 hours prior to their original port of departure, rather than 7-days prior to departing for Port Moresby. For clarity and as an example, if a person initiated their travel in the United States of America and their flight transited through Singapore to Port Moresby, they would need to be tested 72 hours prior to their flight departing the United States of America, not the flight departing from Singapore. Children aged five years and under are exempted from being tested.
• All people arriving into PNG must be tested upon arrival and while in quarantine. This is the responsibility of the facility hosting quarantined persons. The cost may be passed onto the individual by the facility, but it is the responsibility of the quarantine facility to organise the tests and pass the test results onto the NCC.
• If an individual refuses to be tested, they will be quarantined for an additional 14 days.
• There is no restriction on which medical providers may conduct these tests, except that the medical providers and their staff must be properly licensed. The NCC will accept results from all such medical testing provider.
• Tracking of individuals for the purposes of quarantine is now only for home quarantine. Persons quarantining in scheduled quarantine facilities are not required to be tracked.
• All Charter Flights must – in addition to the normal approvals – have the Controller’s written approval. This power has not been delegated.

Domestic travel and social measures have been merged into Measure No. 3 “Domestic Measures”.

Other domestic restrictions continue to apply, including:

• No person may fly if they are symptomatic for COVID-19; and
• All travellers must have their temperature checked by airline staff and no person may travel if their temperature registers at or over 37.5C (except for medivac and emergency flights).

Grace Auka Salmang is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

Papua New Guinean chief executives believe the country’s entire workforce needs to be vaccinated against covid-19 to be fully productive, says Business Council of PNG executive director Douveri Henao.

Although there seems to be a large number of vaccine hesitant people, Henao said that sooner or later it would be mandatory for companies or businesses that have more human contact, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

However, Lae Mayor James Khay said business houses in the country’s second-largest city must not force their employees to be vaccinated as this was against their constitutional rights of freedom of choice.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

Khay said company managers, supervisers, human resource or anybody in management had no right to force their employees to get vaccinated as this was optional, not compulsory.

He said companies imposing strict “no jab, no job” policies as a preventive measure against covid-19 must remember that they would be depriving the rights of their employees to decide. This was totally wrong.

The controversy arose after 500 employees of Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL) walked off their jobs in Lae in protest over the their management’s vaccine policy.

Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL) management, in an unsigned circular, has advised staff members who have been vaccinated to come back to work.

Workers’ petition
In the company’s response to a five-point petition presented by staff to the company directors, the company advised:

• The company’s vaccination policy will not change; and
• The company will follow “Niupela Pasin” protocols

MHL has agreed to pay wages and salaries, long service leave entitlements, rental fees and other entitlements.

All payments will be paid into bank accounts in compliance with company policies

The CEO refused to resign for keeping employees, families and the business safe.

Meanwhile, a major political party in the coalition government has weighed in on the “no jab, no job” controversy, saying it would support the people in a fight against companies demanding that their employees get vaccinated or lose their jobs.

The United Labour Party’s acting secretary Ruben Giusu, speaking from Lae, told the Post-Courier citizens had the constitutional right to choose whether or not get the covid-19 vaccine.

He said the party had met with unions in Madang and in discussion with the unions in Morobe Province about this and other issues affecting workers around the country.

“We have also received a petition from the Morobe Union and will be presenting that to the Prime Minister’s office,” he said.

A female nurse in Madang is the first local Papua New Guinean to be tested positive for the highly infectious coronavirus covid-19 delta strain, with health officials scrambling to find out where she got it from.

She becomes the eighth confirmed case in Papua New Guinea. The other seven cases recorded so far are:

• A woman from Myanmar who had been in hotel quarantine since arriving in PNG. She was a close contact of another traveller who had tested positive on July 13. Both have since recovered; and
• Six Filipino crew members, including the captain, of a vessel which arrived from Indonesia last month. Four were in isolation on the vessel while the captain and another were in isolation at a private hospital in Port Moresby. All have recovered, and the Covid-19 National Control Centre (NCC) allowed the vessel to leave the country.

Controller of the PNG Covid-19 National Pandemic Response David Manning said the concern now was on the nurse in Madang.

• READ MORE: Girl, 15, among 11 dead as 968 new covid cases confirmed in Fiji
• Other PNG covid crisis articles

Controller of the PNG Covid-19 National Pandemic Response David Manning said the concern now was on the nurse in Madang.

“This is a local case, outside of Port Moresby and (not associated) with the (Filipino vessel crew members) cluster tests,” he said.

“This proves community transmission which is of particular concern to us.

“Finding the infection source”
“We are working on finding the source of the infection in Madang.”

He said the NCC would continue to update the public on the Madang case.

“She had presented with symptoms on June 30, and immediately went into isolation while awaiting test results,” he said.

“She then remained in quarantine until she was no longer symptomatic.

“But when her positive test result revealed a high viral load, a sample was sent to the Doherty Institute in Melbourne for whole genomic sequencing.”

Manning warned that if the delta strain was to spread in PNG, it could result in “thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people becoming very sick”.

He also warned about a potential third wave of covid-19 infections and urged the people to follow covid-19 public safety measures and get vaccinated.

“PNG has done well under the international health regulations by detecting the covid-19 celta variant cases, managing them and discharging them when they were cleared medically from isolation.”

The genomic sequencing results for each of the eight confirmed covid-19 delta strain cases were received from the Doherty Institute in Melbourne on August 4.

Miriam Zarriga is a reporter for The National. This article is republished with permission.

As the delta variant of covid-19 spreads to more than 96 countries, Papua New Guinea has put in tighter measures that include all incoming passengers and crew to be vaccinated before boarding any international flight entering the country.

Police Commissioner David Manning, who is also Controller of the PNG COVID-19 National Pandemic Response, released the new control measures yesterday.

Under the updated measures, all incoming passengers and crew should be vaccinated before boarding an international flight coming into PNG.

• READ MORE: PNG opposition leader Belden Namah to challenge travel restrictions
• Other articles about the PNG covid crisis

And the mandatory quarantine period has been extended to 21 days for all incoming travellers, with covid-19 tests to be undertaken on the first, seventh and final day of quarantine.

Scheduled flights can continue as normal, while unscheduled flights require approval from the Controller.

Manning said the new measures were aimed at preventing the spread of the covid-19 delta mutation.

PNG is struggling with widespread community transmission of the virus, with more than 17,000 confirmed cases and rising.

‘Serious threat’
“The delta strain of covid-19 poses a serious threat to our country, and we will do everything we can to prevent or delay its arrival and spread,” Manning said.

Institute of the National Affairs executive director Paul Barker has welcomed the new measures, saying that the restrictions on international flights are really wise — but they also needs to apply to the West Papua border with Indonesia.

“The variant is dominant in India and has become dominant in a short time in Fiji, UK, and South Africa, and is spreading fast in US, and lately has slipped into UK,” he said.

“It’s 60 percent more infectious than the UK variant, which was 60 percent more infectious than the original virus we have here.”

“It’s good to keep it out as long as we can, but it’s already spreading fast in Indonesia, so it will be challenging.”

Overseas destinations
Meanwhile, Air Niugini has also released a statement advising passengers on Air Niugini international flights departing from overseas destinations on or after Friday, July 2, 2021, and entering PNG, must now :

• Be fully vaccinated against covid-19, and provide evidence in the form of a vaccination certificate at check-in;
• Quarantine for 21 days on arrival in PNG at the individual’s expense;
• All previous approvals for home quarantine, or shorter quarantine period, have been revoked by the Controller; and
• All previous Controller approvals for a person to enter PNG as required under previous Measure 2 remain effective, but are now subject to the new direction.

There are no changes to the requirements for international passengers departing from PNG.

Air Niugini continues to operate six flights a week to Brisbane, one flight to Sydney, four flights per week to Singapore, and twice weekly flights each to Manila and Hong Kong.

Rebecca Kuku is a senior journalist with the PNG Post-Courier. This article is republished with permission.

WARNING: This article contains graphic content that some readers may find disturbing.

Unexplained deaths spark sorcery claims, torture and murder, as fears build of a Covid-19 ‘time bomb’ in Papua New Guinea.

When a young boy died suddenly in Tatape Village in Papua New Guinea’s highlands, his relatives said dark forces were at work.

Four women were accused of using sanguma — a local term for sorcery or witchcraft — to kill the child.

• READ MORE: Other articles about Papua New Guinea and sorcery
• Jo Chandler: Gender, human rights and power investigations in Papua New Guinea — Pacific Journalism Review

Sergeant Daniel Olabe from the Hela Police Command alleges the boy’s father and others led their tribesmen to where the women were selling baked flour in a local market.

“Eventually they got one of the ladies… and tortured her,” he said.

“They hung her up, tied her arms and legs, beat her and started cutting her really badly.

“They did it until 10pm and she died eventually.”

Her dismembered body was left beside a road some kilometres away.

A video of the torture and murder shows a crowd of people watching on.

There have so far been no arrests in relation to the murder, with police saying suspects have fled into nearby bush and mountains, and fighting between groups in the aftermath has made it difficult to go into the area.

The case is one of a string of sorcery-accusation killings across PNG in recent months.

While many parts of the country have a long history of belief in sorcery, what concerns authorities is that many recent killings have occurred in regions where there isn’t a tradition of witchcraft.

“This torturing and killing is very serious to us, it’s like a first of its kind to us,” sergeant Olabe said.

In another case in the same month, a man was killed by a mob in Daru after being accused of using sorcery.

“Sorcery-related killing is unheard of in Daru Town,” Daru Police Commander Inspector Soiwa Ricker told local daily newspaper The National.

How traditional beliefs turned into murder
Accusations of sorcery usually follow a sudden or unexplained death, with a grieving village becoming convinced someone among them is to blame.

An accusation can swiftly end in torture, reprisals and lynchings.

But Ruth Kissam, an advocate and expert in the field who works with local NGO the Tribal Foundation, said the violence did not have a cultural background, even in areas where belief in sorcery was traditional.

“Sorcery-accusation-related violence picked up about 10 to 15 years ago,” she said.

“Culturally, there is a deep belief in sorcery in many parts of Papua New Guinea, but it was never violent.

“The belief system was sorcery against sorcery, and mostly it was believed that the village sorcerer was a man.”

Kissam said now the people generally accused were women, often those who were already marginalised or vulnerable and were “easily targeted”.

“Now the dynamics have changed, it’s become more about power plays,” she said.

Con artists’ claim they can identify ‘witches’
Kissam said the horrific violence being seen had “absolutely nothing to do with culture” and instead was “a law and order problem that is arising from a broken health system”.

She believed disenfranchisement among people who were unable to get adequate healthcare and left school with no jobs to go to was contributing to the problem.

And increased connectivity in PNG, through new roads and easier travel, has also been attributed with spreading sorcery beliefs into regions where it isn’t traditional.

Another major concern has been the rise of people called glassmen, or glassmeri for women, who claim to be able to identify a witch.

The Tribal Foundation warned a recent parliamentary inquiry into gender-based violence in PNG they were partly responsible for spreading sorcery into new areas.

“We have people who are glassman and glassmeri who will go into the community and they are profiteering off their [claimed] special ability to say who in the community is the sanguma [or witch],” Tribal Foundation director Gary Bustin said.

“These are just con artists profiting from torture.”

It had become a profitable business model for the glassmen, who asked for payment from a community to identify a “witch”.

Coronavirus could be a sorcery ‘time bomb’
There are also concerns that deaths related to covid-19 could lead to an increase in sorcery accusations — and one such case has already been recorded.

A community health worker in the town of Goroka contracted Covid-19 and died at home earlier this year.

“The family in his tribe said the wife used sorcery to kill her husband, so the community got hold of the lady, stripped her naked and tortured her with hot irons,” local MP Aiya Tambua said.

Someone alerted the police to the lynching as it was in progress. Before officers arrived, the woman was thrown off a bridge.

She survived but Tambua said while the woman was in hospital, her daughter was also attacked and needed to be rescued by police.

“[The hospital] found that the mother is covid positive and the child is covid positive and the father died from covid-19,” he said.

Kissam said covid-19 was a potential “time bomb” for sorcery-related violence.

“Covid poses a very critical risk right now,” she said.

There are reports of “countless” accusations of sorcery following suspected covid-19 deaths, but the case in Goroka is the only confirmed act of violence so far.

Kissam warned that an accusation was still a mark against someone and that a “build-up” of accusations could see people attacked later, especially when covid-19 was out of the headlines.

She said the PNG government needed to run an aggressive education campaign explaining the science of the pandemic.

Why won’t police intervene?
In the wake of the horrific murder of the woman in Hela, PNG’s Parliament is asking questions.

A newly formed special parliamentary committee on gender-based violence has written to the country’s Police Commissioner, asking for information about the investigation and potential arrests.

The letter, written by the committee’s chairman Charles Abel also highlights concerns that the police response to sorcery-accusation violence is “often insufficient”.

He said the committee had been told “police [were] not attending cases in a timely manner and little or no action [was] being taken to investigate or arrest alleged perpetrators”.

A shortage of police in PNG can make investigating the cases difficult, especially as officers are often met with armed and violent community members. PNG’s police-to-civilian ratio is about one officer per 2000 people.

“Most of the police are in urban centres and some of them are guarding the mines, they’re attached to the resource sector,” Kissam said.

“The police could be one [officer] in a catchment of area of 20,000 to 30,000 people.”

Amid the focus on better enforcing existing laws, there are also calls to introduce new legislation specifically targeting glassmen and glassmeri.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Papua New Guinea Council of Churches (PNGCC) has declared its support for the covid-19 vaccination rollout, following a conference in Port Moresby.

Papua New Guinea recorded 72 new covid-19 cases on Thursday, increasing the total number of cases to 16,933 with 173 known deaths.

In a statement, the PNG Council of Churches said: “We pledge our complete support to assist the government of Papua New Guinea and local communities to address community concerns, to work with all partners to ensure that all people are reached and vaccinated consistently.

• READ MORE: Other articles about the PNG covid crisis

“We define ourselves as churches, living and working together for the common good of people and society, therefore we affirm our support for the covid-19 vaccination and declare our trust in the safety and efficacy of covid-19 vaccination as a lifesaving tool which protects human from severe sickness and death due to covid-19,” said the PNG Council of Churches in its statement issued on Friday.

“Our affirmation is guided by the theology of ‘Love for Neighbour’ to reach out to others and the ‘theology of liberation’ to reduce the suffering of our neighbours inflicted by the covid-19 pandemic.”

The PNG Council of Churches also said that most of PNG’s health workers, frontline workers, essential workers, people with underlying illnesses and the aged population were not turning up en-masse for vaccination despite being more at risk of dying from the virus.

The churches also noted that much misinformation was being circulated through the social media that was leading to public hesitancy over the vaccine, thereby endangering the lives of millions of people in PNG.

The churches also recognised the negative social and economic impact that covid-19 had caused in PNG, resulting in the loss of lives and livelihood of Papua New Guineans.

The church leaders also said that the PNGCC had thoroughly examined the covid-19 vaccination rollout from the Christian theological, cultural, social, academic, medical and political perspectives, and had specifically analysed the doubts and suspicions that were raised.

Solidarity, duty, safety, access and communication
Based on this knowledge as well as from the information provided by trusted medical experts, the PNGCC has decided to adopt the five principles of the covid-19 vaccination which are – Solidarity, Duty, Safety, Access and Communication:

Solidarity: The PNGCC strongly affirm global and national call and support for protecting humankind and protecting the people from serious illness and deaths from Covid-19 infection and that these protective measures fully confirm with Christian principles.

Duty: The PNGCC accepts that this is the duty of all persons who are eligible for immunization to join our nationwide ‘Sleeves Up Campaign’ to help stop Covid-19 in PNG to protect themselves and their loved ones from severe sickness and death. It is the duty of the government to provide critical health and social support to uphold the welfare of its citizens.

Safety: The PNGCC acknowledge, based on advice from credible, recognized and reputable medical experts, the safety and effectiveness of all covid-19 vaccines, and that countries with high immunisation rates are beginning to see a decline to almost zero of serious cases and deaths due to covid-19 infection; and that common side effects are not severe and normal.

Access: The PNGCC acknowledges that deadly diseases like Covid-19 can only be controlled and stopped by vaccinating most of the population, especially high-risk groups. It therefore appeals to all responsible departments, agencies and organizations to ensure that full access to covid-19 vaccine is provided to all Papua New Guineans especially the high-risk group in all provinces. The PNGCC calls on local communities and their leaders to work with respected Christian organisations to ensure adequate awareness, access and uptake of covid-19 vaccinations.

Communication: The PNGCC appeals to the media, communities, and key leaders to seek the correct information, and not to spread misinformation and rumours that can cause confusion among our communities and ultimately endanger the lives of millions of people. The PNGCC calls on the media to fully engage the national and international religious leaders and medical experts and institutions to address community concerns about covid-19 vaccinations.

The PNGCC is a Christian ecumenical council in Papua New Guinea, and its members comprise the Anglican Church of PNG, the Gutnius Lutheran Church (affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), the Union Baptist, the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG, the United Church in PNG and the Solomon Islands and the Salvation Army.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Anti-vax misinformation is throwing a spanner in the works for covid-19 vaccination programmes in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, with the prime ministers of both countries firing warnings at those spreading it.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape issued a blunt statement this week, saying his government had done everything possible to provide the vaccine during a time of global demand, and that if people did not get themselves vaccinated and then felt sick or died, they only had themselves to blame.

The tally of confirmed cases of vovid-19 in PNG has grown at 16,000 cases in four months, and almost 17,000 people have tested positive for the virus so far. Yet the rate of infections has tapered off from the highs of March.

• READ MORE: Other PNG, Solomon articles on the covid pandemic

The government has declared the situation under control, but is anxious to use its supply of AstraZeneca doses before they expire. About 100,000 doses sent through the COVAX programme facility need to be used within a month or they will go to waste.

A little more than 41,000 people in PNG have now had the vaccine, mostly essential workers and about 7000 health workers. But the figures are a drop in the bucket compared to the total population of 9 million people.

Professor Glen Mola, the head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Port Moresby General Hospital, said the government could be more vigorous in quelling misinformation from anti-vaxxers.

“It’s just ridiculous that we spend hundreds of hours out of our precious health worker time countering the ridiculous conspiracy theories of a few people. They spend all their days on social media spreading all this fear,” he said.

“The Controller has powers under the National Pandemic Act, to declare people a threat to public safety… and give them a warning and lock them up if they don’t heed the warning.”

Hesitancy, social media and antivaxxers
Many of PNG’s nurses initially refused to get the vaccine when first offered in late March and early April, asking for clear information about its safety and efficacy.

A Port Moresby nurse (who asked not to be named) this week told RNZ her colleagues had been working their way through the information about the vaccine that had since been made available to them, but she was not yet convinced about it.

“The frontliners are not well informed of all those things, so most of us are still in suspense. But we are just trying to read around and search online, and see for ourselves what it is.”

Professor Mola said his team of doctors had all lined up for the jab, but more work was needed to be put into the campaign to vaccinate as many health workers as possible.

“They’ve had their first shot, and some have had two shots now — that’s the doctors in the maternity side. And we have not had a doctor go down with covid since we started vaccinating.”

One prominent anti-vaxxer in PNG with almost 7000 Facebook followers offers multiple daily commentaries on what she described as a global project to kill and maim millions.

The information shared included “terrifying” reports from an alternative UK media source, denigration of organisations which support the vaccine rollout in PNG, and questions such as: “How many times do we have to tell these idiots who have allowed themselves to be injected with poison?”

Marape earlier warned citizens against relying on information on Facebook to guide their approach to vaccines.

The official death toll from covid-19 in PNG is 164, but as with the total confirmed cases, the real figure is likely to be much higher, as testing for the virus and reporting of deaths have been limited.

Health workers feature prominently among those in PNG confirmed to have caught the virus so far, and systemic staffing shortages were placing great strain on the workers who continued on the job.

The Port Moresby nurse spoken to by RNZ said she believed there were hospital staff infected with the virus who continued to work in the hospital.

“Maybe they are just trying to normalise the coronavirus like any other diseases,” she said.

Solomon Islands health workers warned
In Solomon Islands, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare spoke out in a nationwide address criticising a small group of health workers who had promoted misinformation about covid-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness.

He said it was extremely sad that the group had ignored evidence that vaccines were vital to break the cycle of the pandemic, and instead promoted misleading information to the public.

“While I respect individual points of view, I will not allow deliberate misinformation to scare people that wish to protect themselves from covid-19.

“If such deliberate misinformation continues, those involved will be held accountable in accordance with provisions of the relevant regulations.”

Counting on demographics
Professor Mola said drily that the upshot was that PNG was relying on the natural protection in a youthful population to mitigate some of the impacts of covid-19.

“Seventy five percent of our population are under 30. And by and large (among) under-30s only one out of 1000 gets seriously ill, and one out of 2000 dies. So we’re going to rely on the protection of youth.”

PNG Health Minister Jelta Wong said officials were doing what they could to vaccinate the priority groups, and while there were ongoing “issues” with reaching all healthworkers, the vaccinations were now been extended to the elderly.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape is appealing to people to take the covid-19 vaccine before doses expire.

This comes as the number of covid cases in PNG has climbed by around 1000 a week since February.

A little over 40,000 people in PNG have received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Of this number, 6500 are health workers, the rest are essential workers and a small number of people with co-morbidities.

• READ MORE: PNG’s covid-19 cases still growing – 10 percent are health workers
• More articles about PNG’s covid crisis

But PNG authorities are grappling with vaccine hesitancy, and are anxious to use up tens of thousands more Astrazeneca doses before they expire.

The prime minister, who was the first in PNG to take the jab back in March, has appealed to people to take the vaccine that was made available despite a global shortage.

Marape, who took his second dose of Astrazeneca last week, has moved to dispel rumours about the vaccine, saying it was safe and represented the best opportunity for people to protect themselves against the virus.

He told local media that he had not experienced any form of side effects from the first dose and that now, with the second dose, he was on the path to acquiring 80 percent immunity against covid-19 after 40 days.

100,000 doses in storage
But even with the government’s vaccination awareness campaign, more than 100,000 doses remain in storage and in danger of going to waste.

Many of the doses, made available to PNG through the Covax facility, are due to expire in either mid or late July.

Marape said his government was doing everything possible to have the vaccine available and that if people did not get themselves vaccinated and then felt sick and maybe died, then they only had themselves to blame.

With the government opting not to make vaccination compulsory, the prime minister emphasised that it was a choice that citizens had to make.

He said PNG was lucky to have access to vaccines earlier this year, thanks to partners such as the World Health Organisation, the Covax facility and the Australian government.

Meanwhile, PNG’s Pandemic Response Controller reported 40 new covid-19 cases yesterday, increasing the country’s total cases to 16,682 while the death toll is 164.

To date, more than 126,000 people have been tested for the virus in a population of almost 9 million. All 22 provinces including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville have reported cases.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Papua New Guinean government should protect women accused of practicing “sorcery” from violence and hold the attackers to account, says the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

At least five women have been attacked in the past three months since March 2021 — one of whom was killed.

“The Papua New Guinea government should urgently investigate all cases of violence following sorcery accusations, and prosecute those responsible,” Stephanie McLennan, senior manager of Asia initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement today.

• READ MORE: PNG woman tortured and killed in horrifying video over ‘sorcery’
• Other gender-based violence reports in PNG
• More Human Rights Watch reports on Papua New Guinea

“Gender-based violence is a persistent problem in Papua New Guinea, and the government is doing very little to stop it.”

Violence following allegations of sorcery is common in Papua New Guinea, with the most recent reported case on May 7 in Hela Province.

Mary Kopari was accused of sorcery following the death of a young boy in her village. She was tied up and burned alive in Komo-Magarima District.

The attack was recorded on video and reported by Papua New Guinea television. Although the police know the identity of some of the attackers, no arrests have yet been reported.

Surge in covid cases
Because sorcery accusations often arise in response to an unexpected death or illness in a community, the increase in such violence may be related to a surge in confirmed cases of covid-19 in Papua New Guinea.

On or around March 30, in Goroka, Eastern Highlands, a 45-year-old woman and her 19-year-old daughter were accused of causing the woman’s husband’s death, believed to be from covid-19.

They were held captive by the husband’s relatives and tortured with hot iron rods. Police rescued the pair.

On April 25, police rescued two women after a group of about 20 men tortured them in Port Moresby. The men accused the women of practising sorcery and killing a woman who had recently died.

The women were treated for severe burns and knife wounds.

“The Papua New Guinea government should address the root causes of sorcery accusations, including the lack of basic knowledge among the public about health problems,” McLennan said.

“The authorities should act swiftly and effectively to correct misinformation about deaths from covid-19 to prevent more sorcery accusations and attacks.”

Most attacks target women
While there are past cases of violence based on accusations of sorcery targeting men, the majority of these attacks target women. Such attacks are part of the larger problem of high rates of gender-based violence and impunity for the abusers in Papua New Guinea.

In November 2020 a coalition of Parliament members convened the country’s first national summit on gender-based violence. A special parliamentary committee on the issue held its first hearings on May 24 and 25, and will continue its inquiry until June 30.

Dr Fiona Hukula, gender specialist for the Pacific Islands Forum, testified at the May hearings about violence against women accused of sorcery, saying that they are are “often tortured, often cut, sexually violated, their clothes are removed and they are often kept in captivity”.

As Human Rights Watch has documented, greater resources and increased political will are needed to respond to all forms of gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea. At the recent parliamentary hearings, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said “there are 1.4 million cases of GBV [gender-based violence] every year in PNG … and only 100 convictions achieved”.

Papua New Guinea will participate in November in the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review process under which member countries review the human rights situation in the country.

The Human Rights Watch submission for that process highlighted the issue of gender-based violence and violence following accusations of sorcery.

“Papua New Guinea’s leaders should order the police to take gender-based violence seriously, provide sufficient resources for officials to prosecute these crimes, and provide all survivors with medical treatment, shelter and access to support services,” McLennan said.

“The parliamentary inquiry should lead the way in exploring options for early warning, protection, and dispute resolution mechanisms that can help prevent such crimes.

Ten percent of Papua New Guineans confirmed to have been infected with covid-19 are health workers, while the death toll from the pandemic has jumped sharply to 154.

The number of confirmed cases of the virus in PNG continues to climb at a worrying rate, with the Pandemic Response Controller reporting 569 new cases in a 48-hour period ending midday on Wednesday.

This increases the total number of cases to 14,910, of whom the Controller, David Manning, said 1499 were health workers.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

“This is a serious cause for concern. Health workers are in the front line of this fight against covid-19 and they must be protected at all cost,” he said.

“However, statistics again show that health workers again make up for about ten per cent of those vaccinated thus far.”

According to Manning’s office, as of Tuesday a total of 16,459 people had received their first dose of the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine. The majority are essential workers, including 3618 health workers.

By province, the National Capital District still has the highest number of people vaccinated with 8199, followed by Morobe with 1874.

Vaccine hesitancy significant
Seventeen provinces have rolled out their vaccination programmes with the remaining five set to begin theirs as well.

Vaccine hesitancy is significant among PNG’s public, including health workers, especially nurses, increasing pressure on a health system under massive strain due to covid.

“It is optional but I am appealing to the health workers around the country to take the shot immediately. Protect yourself first so that you can then effectively defend your country from this unseen enemy,” Manning said.

As well as hundreds of new confirmed cases, the Controller reported 15 new deaths over the last two daily updates.

The total number of deaths is now at 154.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

He said he was not willing to “sacrifice the health of our elected leaders while at the same time, observe the parliamentary process that can pose an immediate and real danger to our MPs, their staff and families”.

“I have rallied Members of Parliament on either of the House to consider this threat as serious and to ensure that our safety is not compromised,” Marape said.

• READ MORE: PNG parliament adjourns amid covid surge and attempt to remove PM
• PNG in a position to be declared a failed state, says O’Neill

Parliament was adjourned to August 10 after 42 parliamentary staff and an MP tested positive to covid-19.

This came shortly after the opposition amended its vote-of-no-confidence motion and named former prime minister Peter O’Neill as the alternative prime minister.

Marape said it was incumbent upon the government, with its numbers, to exercise care and responsibility to ensure that MPS were protected from the potential spread of the virus.

“I note that while the [Pandemic] Controller has classified these workers as essential workers for the purpose of the Pandemic Act 2020, the physical risk of a potential outbreak in Parliament can never be underestimated,” he said.

‘About us as human beings’
“This action is in the interest of all who sit in Parliament and all who work there.

“It is not about the government and the opposition; it is about all of us human beings, who are susceptible to the virus.

“We have to be responsible for lives, including the lives of politicians.

“Parliament, in its debate, confronted the loss of the former Member for Kerema to the virus.”

Members of the media queried the necessity of a four-month adjournment, when the incubation period for the coronavirus was two weeks, to which Marape said though the incubation period ends after two weeks that did not stop the spread of the virus.

Rebecca Kuku is a journalist with the PNG Post-Courier.

Papua New Guinea’s parliament has adjourned for almost four months, dashing an attempt to oust Prime Minister James Marape.

The adjournment allows Marape to avoid a no confidence vote.

Earlier, the opposition had tabled a motion of no confidence against Marape.

• READ MORE: Chaos in PNG politics as prime minister adjourns parliament, avoiding no confidence vote
• Covid rife in PNG’s Parliament precinct

The opposition listed the former prime minister Peter O’Neill as its nominee for alternate prime minister.

However, PNG’s constitution doesn’t allow confidence votes against a sitting prime minister in the 12 months before an election.

The country is due to go to the polls in July next year.

The opposition is expected to challenge the adjournment in court, with O’Neill alleging it was in breach of rules around parliament’s minimum number of sitting days.

Covid-19 outbreak
But the adjournment was deemed necessary by government after the announcement of figures indicating a quarter of staff at Parliament are infected with covid-19.

Papua New Guinea crossed the threshold of 10,000 covid-19 cases yesterday, with 91 known deaths. However, health officials believe the true number of cases is much higher.

Parliament’s speaker, Job Pomat, told MPs that from preliminary sampling of 167 people within the parliament precinct, 42 – or 25 percent of them – tested positive for the virus.

RNZ Pacific reports that most of those infected were staff rather than MPs, but several MPs tested positive earlier this year, and Pomat said the situation was serious.

ICYMI – Preliminary testing for Covid-19 among staff at Papua New Guinea’s parliament precinct indicates a quarter of them are infected.https://t.co/qJ6OJkFLu1

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) April 21, 2021

On the advice of the National Pandemic Response Controller, David Manning, Pomat said all staff and members were to undergo compulsory testing for the coronavirus.

Pomat said that prior to the letter he had already issued a similar directive.

“I have now issued further directives for compulsory testing to be conducted to both members of staff of parliament and political staff,” Pomat explained.

Another Vote of No Confidence is being lodged – former PM Peter O’Neill expected to be listed as the Opposition’s candidate for PM. https://t.co/YrU1vT1D3B

— Natalie Whiting (@Nat_Whiting) April 21, 2021

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister has warned citizens against relying on information on Facebook to guide their approach to vaccines.

James Marape was speaking after becoming the first person to receive the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine in his country.

Australia has provided an initial 8000 vaccine doses to PNG where the total number of confirmed covid-19 cases has climbed by hundreds to 5991 – a rise of 371 by midday on Tuesday.

• READ MORE: More PNG covid pandemic reports

The death toll has now reached 60.

Faced with vaccine hesitancy in PNG, Marape said citizens should be comforted by evidence in Australia and elsewhere that it is safe for populations to get vaccinated.

“Facebook is not a place where you source accurate information. Look into established literature and data available on what vaccines can do, on what is being done globally,” he said.

“For us, Papua New Guinea, we are beneficial to research already conducted elsewhere, based on best evidence available,” the prime minister explained.

Marape reassures the public
After getting the jab himself, Marape sought to assure the public, especially health workers, that the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine was safe.

Hundreds of health workers have been infected with covid-19, and Marape said he did not want the country to lose any frontliners.

He said community transmission of the virus was increasingly hampering the health system.

While vaccination was not compulsory, Marape said PNG’s communities must take ownership of fighting the virus.

A nation-wide isolation strategy which commenced this month introduced restrictions on public movement, as well as mandatory mask use and other measures, but adherence had been slack in many areas.

The prime minister indicated that the government could impose further measures to restrict movement of people between villages, towns and provinces,

PNG keeping options open on vaccine access
Marape said the government was looking at all options to ensure that covid-19 vaccines were optionally available for Papua New Guineans.

He told reporters his government was working closely with the Chinese government.

PNG’s medical authorities are considering whether to approve China’s Sinopharm vaccine for use in the country, with an announcement expected in the coming week.

Two months ago China announced a donation of 200-thousand doses of the vaccine to PNG.

Marape said PNG was also expecting another million Astra Zeneca doses from Australia, and is looking into other possibilities through the global Covax network.

The latest numbers from the Pandemic Response Controller
Papua New Guinea recorded four new covid-19 deaths to Tuesday midday, taking the national toll to 60.

All four deaths were reported in the National Capital District.

Two females aged 19 and 63, with the two men aged 44 and 49.

Most of the deaths, 48, have happened in Port Moresby.

The total number of cases is up to 5,991 – a rise of 371.

Again most in the capital, but also 31 in Morobe, 36 in Western Province and 8 in Bougainville.

There are now covid cases in 20 of PNG 22 provinces.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The West Sepik administration is not happy with the way illegal border crossers are being handled by the Indonesian and Papua New Guinean consular officials in Jayapura amid the worsening covid pandemic crisis.

Administrator Conrad Tilau said the provincial administration had now withdrawn its support and involvement in anything to do with border crossers due to the hike in covid-19 pandemic cases in the province.

He said the total covid-19 cases in West Sepik had increased to 336 and it was a concern for the provincial administration.

• READ MORE: Seven more covid-19 deaths in past day in PNG

Tilau said the border crossing was one transmission pathway and the provincial administration was concerned that an isolation centre had not been established in the province.

He said the issue of border crossing was a major concern for his administration, particularly with the surge in the covid-19 cases, and illegal activities along the border.

Tilau said the border crossing into Indonesia was an illegal activity that needed Indonesian authorities to deal with them using their laws instead of sending perpetrators back to Papua New Guinea and creating more problems.

“Border crossing is still going on unnoticed and those crossers are conducting illegal activities and they should be subject to the Indonesian laws,” he said.

‘Poses more risk to PNG’
“For the PNG Consular [officials] in Jayapura to send back those illegal border crossers poses more risk to the country.

“They are illegally in Indonesia so they should be subject to Indonesian laws instead of deporting them to PNG and creating more problems like the increase in covid-19 pandemic cases.”

Tilau said the provincial administration was involved in the exercise along the border when covid-19 first entered the country in 2020 but since then it had stopped its support.

“When we tested the first case in 2021, we said no repatriation but the consular-general got approval from the Pandemic Controller [Police Commissioner David Manning] to send those people back; we do not have an isolation centre in Vanimo to deal with border crossers infected with covid-19,” he said.

‘Indonesia should help PNG’
“Indonesia should help PNG amid the surge in sovid-19 cases.

“What kind of bilateral relationship is this?

“PNG and Indonesia must cooperate to protect their borders from covid-19 and … illegal activities.

“The provincial government and provincial administration have withdrawn our involvement.”

He urged the national government, through the Pandemic Controller, to fund a covid-19 isolation centre in Vanimo given the surge in infections and movement of people along the border.

Meanwhile, the Pandemic Controller has issued a travel restriction along PNG’s international borders.

Jeffrey Elapa is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

Eleven new covid-19 coronavirus deaths were reported in Papua New Guinea on Friday and Saturday, raising the country’s death toll to 51.

Health secretary and Covid-19 Deputy Controller Dr Osborne Liko said PNG was on the verge of been declared a coronavirus red zone as infections surged out of control nationwide.

“I am feeling uncomfortable at the rate Papua New Guineans are being infected and killed by the virus. Infections have surged by about 50 percent, deaths are up by about 40 per cent in the country within seven days,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid pandemic articles

“People, please covid-19 is not a joke. We are heading for the red zone. You have to take this Nupla Pasin and non-pharmaceutical protocols outlined in the 28 days National Isolation Strategy imposed by the Controller seriously.

“And, in the next seven days from now, everyone must seriously play their part to help check the spread of the covid-19,” he added.

Liko said deaths surged by 40 percent in seven days on Saturday.

“Last Saturday [a week ago – March 20], only 36 deaths were reported and during the week we reported 13 deaths bringing a total of 51 dead on Saturday,” he said.

“And on March 20, confirmed total infections was at 2714, and on Saturday 5205 cases were registered.

‘If you’re not serious … then?’
“The real issue is, if you are not serious about this deadly public health threat, where do we go?

“As of today, seven days from March 20, hospitals nationwide are filling up.

“Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) has 18 beds for covid-19 patients and 16 beds are occupied.

“There are no beds in the intensive care unit (ICU). Of the six beds in ICU, four beds are occupied.

“And in the next seven days, if we are not careful and adhere strictly to the Nuipla Pasin, there will be no beds for new patients.

“And that is in PMGH [Port Moresby General Hospital].

“Angau Memorial Hospital in Lae is now closed because as 50 percent of the health staff have been infected with the covid-19.”

Health workers stressed out
Liko said heath workers nationwide were stressed and burned out.

“At the Rita Flynn isolation centre in Port Moresby, of the 43 beds, 39 are occupied which is about 95 per cent occupancy,” he said.

“And with the number of cases going in, we will run out of beds.”

Liko said patients who had recovered within 14 days were being sent home “but then home isolation is another challenge as we are Melanesians living with large families”.

On Friday, all the deaths were recorded in the National Capital District – four men and two women aged between 28 and 73.

They were admitted to the ICU until their death, said Covid-19 National Pandemic Response spokesman Chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas in a media statement.

He said 220 more new infections were reported on Friday and the figure rose to 5205 on Saturday.

Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.

Thirty Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldiers are working with other security personnel and the NCD covid-19 team to carry out a two-week awareness campaign in urban communities in the capital Port Moresby.

PNGDF commander Major-General Gilbert Toropo told the PNG Post-Courier that the 30 officers from the military police unit at Murray Barracks and Taurama Barracks would assist other security frontliners to boost their capacity.

“It is the NCD Governor Powes Parkop’s initiative to do awareness in Port Moresby communities and he needs manpower to assist NCDC health staff on the awareness programme, and because we have the capacity, he submitted a request for manpower,” Major-General Toropo said.

• READ MORE: The PNG covid crisis

He said his soldiers would be working closely with police and NCDC staff to move into settlements, bus stops, PMV buses and informal market areas conducting awareness on covid-19 for the next two weeks.

He said the awareness team would ensure that the public observed proper protocols of social distancing, wearing masks and giving advice.

“Our people are so complacent they think this is like a joke and they cannot protect themselves. That is why they are not taking measures seriously and Governor Parkop’s initiative to carry out awareness is the best we can do,” he said.

Toropo said that if citizens would listen and follow instructions, “we will stop spreading covid-19”.

He said that after the awareness campaign, penalties would be imposed on individuals, business houses, PMV bus owners and taxi drivers breaching the National Pandemic Act.

Papua New Guinea is suffering from a spike in covid-19 infections with 5184 cases and 45 deaths, including a parliamentarian.

Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

As the covid-19 coronavirus infections continue to rise seemingly unabated, Papua New Guinea’s National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning has acted to tackle a root cause of the public health crisis – public motor vehicle (PMV) drivers, crew and their passengers.

On Tuesday, Papua New Guinea reported a total of 351 new covid-19 cases, raising the national total of confirmed cases to 4109, reports The National.

This is an increase of 1021 cases over a period of six days.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

There were also two new deaths, raising the death toll to 39. And Police Commissioner Manning issued a stern warning to all owners, operators, drivers and crew of PMVs nationwide to strictly comply with covid-19 protocols or risk being pulled off the road and deregistered.

“I am giving PMV owners and operators until 4pm tomorrow [Wednesday] the opportunity to get masks and hand sanitisers, and proper equipment for cleaning buses while in operation,” he said.

“They are also to ensure all passengers who board their vehicles were masked.

“By 4pm, PMVs who did not follow these simple measures will be pulled off the road.

“The buses and trucks will be impounded and they may lose their licences to operate.

‘Duty to follow protocols’
“PMV operators, drivers and crew members have a duty to follow all covid-19 health protocols and ensure their passengers comply as well.

“We all need to do our part to mitigate and stop the spread of the virus.”

A total of 60,680 people in PNG have been tested for the covid-19. Of these, 4109 tested positive.

The samples pending results at the laboratory stood at 2539.

Of the 351 new cases on Tuesday, 51 percent were asymptomatic.

This meant that many people did not know they had the virus and were passing it onto others unknowingly.

Symptoms include coughing, fever, headache, shortness of breath, sore throat, chills and muscle aches.

The new cases came from 11 provinces: Western (166), National Capital District (84); Eastern Highlands (39); Morobe (20); Southern Highlands (17); Western Highlands (9); East Sepik (6); New Ireland (4); Jiwaka (3); Gulf (1); and, Enga (1).

Two new deaths
The two new deaths were from Western – a 52-year-old man – while the other, also a male, aged 44, came from Jiwaka.

This is Western’s second confirmed death due to the covid-19 and Jiwaka’s first.

Four exported cases were detected for PNG with two identified in hotel quarantine in Sydney, New South Wales.

The third case was detected in hotel quarantine in Cairns, Queensland. He travelled from Western.

The fourth case was detected in hotel quarantine in New Zealand.

Western began reporting cases since last year and is the province with the second highest reported confirmed cases, registering its first death on Monday.

Commissioner Manning sent his condolences to the family, saying: “It is not easy to report the deaths.

‘Take care of yourself’
“We encourage everyone to take care of yourself.

“Please, I urge everyone to ensure they are following the health measures in the Niupela Pasin.

“This message is not only for the people living in towns and urban areas.

“It is for everyone, including those living rural areas.

“The virus is spread from person to person and in a country like ours, most people do not come for tests until they are sick, and by that time, the virus has spread to other people.

“Therefore, we do not know how far it has spread to the rural areas.”

The National articles are republished with permission.

Australia’s nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is battling an unfolding covid crisis. The Morrison government is urgently deploying 8,000 vaccine doses to the nation’s health workers – but poor electricity access means there are serious questions over PNG’s broader vaccine roll-out.

Vaccine supplies must be stored at cold or ultra-cold temperatures along the supply chain.

Importantly, when the vaccines reach hospitals and medical centres in PNG, stable electricity will be needed to power refrigerators to store the doses before they are administered to patients.

• READ MORE: ‘A dam has been breached’: a covid crisis on our doorstep shows how little we pay attention to PNG
• How mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna work, why they’re a breakthrough and why they need to be kept so cold
• A catastrophe looms with PNG’s covid crisis. Australia needs to respond urgently

Currently only about 13 percent of Papua New Guinea’s eight million people have reliable access to electricity. This is not an isolated problem.

In 2019, about 770 million people globally lived in “energy poverty”, without access to electricity – and the problem has grown worse due to covid.

Australia is working to provide one million doses for wider distribution in PNG. But the pandemic only truly ends when the vaccines are rolled out globally. Countries and communities without electricity access present a major barrier to this goal.

Energy poverty matters
Australia enjoys a relatively reliable electricity network, even in remote parts of the country. There are also systems in place to keep vaccines cold in the event of a power outage, such as backup power.

But around the world, even in our Pacific neighbourhood, energy poverty is widespread and persistent. And covid-19 has created a vicious circle for these nations.

The pandemic has forced governments to shift priorities, leading to less funding for electricity infrastructure. In some countries, progress in electricity access has reversed for the first time in many years.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says this reversal is being worst felt in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There, 580 million people lack access to electricity – three quarters of the world’s total. The IEA estimates this number grew by 6 percent in 2020.

It cites Uganda, where public subsidies for an electricity access program have been put on hold, and South Africa where funds to expand rural electrification were redirected to health and welfare programs.

PNG wants 70 percent of the country connected to electricity by 2030. This will require large scale investment in new generation capacity, and transmission and distribution lines to connect people to the grid. But the nation has long suffered economic instability, and the pandemic has only added to this.

Making matters worse, the true extent and trajectory of covid-19 may be uncertain in nations suffering energy poverty. For example, there is growing evidence of under-testing in Africa and under-reporting of cases and deaths in PNG.

Vaccine refrigeration is key
As experts have noted, efforts to end the pandemic have largely focused on developing, testing and manufacturing an effective vaccine. Less attention has been paid to distributing it rapidly at scale.

There are exceptions. The Lancet has identified local deployment as one of four key dimensions for an effective global vaccination roll-out.

More than 390 million vaccine doses have already been administered, mostly in high- and middle-income countries with effective financial and planning resources.

But in countries where electricity access is poor, refrigeration of vaccines during transport and storage may prove very difficult. Some countries may not be able to vaccinate large parts of their population.

The Pfizer vaccine must be frozen at around -70℃. The AstraZeneca vaccine must be kept at between 2℃ and 8℃.

Ultra-cold supply chains were established for the deployment of the Ebola vaccine in Africa in 2013–14. However, the scale required for covid is enormous, and would be prohibitively expensive.

As reported in the Lancet, as of 2018, 74 of 194 member states of the World Health Organisation had no adult vaccination programme for any disease. Fewer than 11 percent of countries in Africa and South Asia reported having such a programme. This was thought to be partly due to a lack of systems for storage and delivery.

Alarmingly, a recent study suggested more than 85 less-developed countries will not have widespread access to covid vaccines until 2023.

Many are relying on the World Health Organisation’s COVAX initiative, which aims to secure six billion doses of vaccine for less developed countries.

Similarly, the Quad regional grouping – Australia, the US, Japan, and India – recently pledged to boost vaccine production and distribution for Asian and Pacific island countries.

But without access to reliable electricity, the roll-out of these vaccines will be hampered. This is particularly an issue in countries with remote and dispersed populations. There, keeping the vaccine cold over the “last mile” of distribution and storage may prove impossible.

Energy access is key to ending the pandemic
Communities experiencing energy poverty, such as in PNG, face other setbacks when it comes to managing the pandemic. Those populations are more likely to use solid fuels, such as wood, for cooking. This leads to indoor air pollution which can cause severe respiratory illnesses and more severe covid-19 symptoms.

Without electricity access, such communities are unlikely to provide appropriate covid-19 health responses, leading to a higher burden of disease.

In PNG, an “Electrification Partnership”, of which Australia is a key partner, appears on track. For instance, at a virtual summit at the height of the pandemic last August, Australia committed to financing a large-scale solar plant in Morobe Province. It would be one of the largest solar plants in the Pacific.

But as immunisation emerges as the world’s primary weapon to combat covid-19, much more work is needed to improve electricity access to those who desperately need it. Indeed, ending the global pandemic may demand it.

Dr Tony Heynen, programme coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland; Dr Paul Lant, professor of chemical engineering, The University of Queensland, and Dr Vigya Sharma, senior research fellow, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand is sending personal protective equipment to Papua New Guinea to assist health workers treat a surge in covid-19 cases.

PNG’s total number of confirmed covid cases is speeding towards 3000 in an outbreak which is overwhelming the country’s health system.

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said New Zealand was very concerned by the worsening outbreak in PNG, and had agreed to assist where it could.

• READ MORE: Other Asia Pacific Report articles on the PNG covid crisis

The PPE package is to be delivered on a New Zealand Defence Force flight to PNG tomorrow.

It includes hand sanitisers, goggles, swabs, gloves, gowns, surgical masks, face shields and other items sufficient to treat 1000 covid-19 cases.

“We are providing support to the government of Papua New Guinea as it identifies and responds to emergency needs created by the pandemic,” Mahuta said.

“We are also making funding available to the New Zealand High Commission in Port Moresby to respond to needs on the ground, as requested by partners in Papua New Guinea.”

Boosts last year’s aid
The support announced today by the minister is in addition to the NZ$6 million in covid-related support that New Zealand has provided to PNG over the past year, including budget support, medical supplies and equipment.

“Our thoughts are with the people of Papua New Guinea who have been affected by the covid-19 pandemic, and in particular the whānau of the people who have tragically lost their lives,” the minister said.

Mahuta said New Zealand stood ready to assist PNG further as areas for additional support become clear.

Meanwhile, medical equipment and 8000 doses of the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine from Australia have been dispatched to PNG this week for frontline health workers, of whom more than 100 have already tested positive in the capital.

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has requested the European Union to divert a million more doses of the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine for urgent use in PNG.

He said Australia had contracted and paid for the doses and intended them for use in PNG.

The request comes two weeks after Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, enacting a recently introduced EU regulation for the first time.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s biggest referral hospital in the country, Port Moresby General (PMGH) is seeing a massive increase of covid-19 cases both from its staff and patients.

Chief executive Dr Paki Molumi has confirmed that 114 of the hospital staff have tested positive to covid-19 which is almost the half of the hospital staff.

Dr Molumi said the hospital has allowed those confirmed with covid-19 to be isolated for two weeks and come back for work after their isolation period is over.

• READ MORE: A catastrophe looms with PNG’s covid crisis
• PNG to adopt ‘nationwide isolation strategy’

“Our staff have undergone full medical examination,” he said.

“Those who have core underline diseases and the older ones have been put in the back, away from the frontline to keep them safe.”

Dr Molumi clarified that most the hospital staff contracted covid-19 from their communities and not from the hospital.

“About 70 percent of them have got the disease from the community which means that there is a wide spread of the disease in our communities.”

He said testing was the only way to determine how far and wide covid-19 is spreading.

“We are picking up more of the cases among our staff because we are doing testing every day.”

Besides the numbers rapidly increasing among the staff at the PMGH, the staff have undergone training to stay mentally prepared and readily be available for a covid-19 situation like this prior to the surge currently experienced.

“The staff who have been confirmed with COVID-19 were isolated for two weeks and they return to work after that.

“This is the good thing about POM GEN staff, they are willing to take on the challenges despite the situation and move forward to serve the population.”

Christine Kildi is a reporter from PNG FM’s PNG Haus Bung.

East Sepik, preparing for the state funeral of Papua New Guinea’s Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, could expect a surge in covid-19 cases as thousands flock into the province in coming days, an official says.

East Sepik Health Authority chief executive officer Mark Mauludu said this was most likely to happen because people continued to breach the covid-19 protocols and public health safety measures repeated so many times, reports The National.

“We are conscious of the many people who will travel into the province.

• READ MORE: Other Sir Michael Somare reports

“We cannot control the movement of people,” he said.

“There is a possibility of cross-infection among the people and we expect a rise in [covid-19] cases in the province.

“Right now we don’t have proper quarantine and isolation facilities.

“The isolation ward we have in the hospital can cater for only six people.

Three people isolated
“We now have three people isolated at the ward.”

The body of Sir Michael would arrived in Wewak on Sunday.

He will be buried at his Kreer Heights property on Tuesday.

Mauludu said the hospital staff had a meeting on Monday to discuss how to best deal with a spike in cases.

“The hospital staff met and passed a number of resolutions, one of which was to seek permission for the use of the stadium after the burial programme of the late Sir Michael,” he said.

“We would like to propose to convert the stadium into a quarantine and isolation area.”

Mauludu added that they were also very strict with the movement of people in and out of the hospital.

“We continue to screen people going in and out of the hospital.

“We encourage people to wear masks before coming into the hospital.

“Those who continue to defy this are fined K10,” he said.

Sir Michael, 84, died in Port Moresby on February 26.

Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.

A medical academic has warned the Papua New Guinea government to immediately bring in more than 680,000 doses of covid-19 vaccines because urban health services will collapse if the spike in cases continues.

Professor Glen Mola, who correctly predicted last July that the country should brace for a spike in cases in the ensuing months, said the priority was to “slow the epidemic” as much as possible.

He is head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of PNG’s School of Medicine and Health Science, and the Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH).

• READ MORE: PNG approves AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine
• Gary Juffa: People, covid is real … and dangerous. I know, I’m recovering

“We hope that we can slow the epidemic as much as possible,” Professor Mola said yesterday.

“But if there are too many sick people with respiratory symptoms presenting on any given day, then clearly they cannot all be just allowed to pile into the emergency department of the PMGH and the outpatients of the urban clinics.

“If there are just too many for the nurses and doctors to deal with, what are they to do?

“I want to see the vaccine here as soon as possible because the earlier we get the vaccine, the more lives (especially of older people and those with co-morbidities) will be saved.

‘Take notice of health advice’
“Everyone should start taking notice of health advice because by ignoring it, you are risking your own life and the lives of those around you – especially your seniors.”

Professor Mola told The National that the 684,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine were urgently needed in the country to protect the health system.

He said the number of doses mentioned would cover the front-line health workers and older people with co-morbidities. He suggested that some MPs might want to be in front of the queue as well to show “leadership”.

He said that with the spike, the lives of elderly citizens and those with co-morbidities were at a very high risk of succumbing to covid-19.

He called on young people to not wander around the entire day because their chances of picking up the virus and spreading it to older family members were high.

Meanwhile, the PMGH is prioritising its clinical services over the next two weeks due to the covid-19 spike.

Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi said the action had to be taken because of the increasing number of workers testing positive.

“The main objective is to mobilise staff into areas greatly affected as a result of staff [being] quarantined and [in] isolation,” he said.

Action at a glance
Services to be affected include:

• CONSULTATION clinic will be closed, with only urgent matters to be attended to;
• ONLY emergency surgeries will be performed while elective surgeries put on hold;
• EMERGENCIES with category 1-3 and referrals will be attended at the emergency department and children’s outpatient. People are advised to go to the nearest clinic and health facility in the city; and
• GYNAECOLOGY clinic will be closed and bookings rescheduled.

The antenatal clinic, TB clinic, pharmacy, dental clinic, medical and imaging services will remain open but there will be certain limitations and strict control.

National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning said that a “lockdown was [still] an option”.

“Only after we make sure we take everything into consideration including what it will do to Port Moresby and the businesses,” he said.

“I expect all individuals, communities, businesses and organisations to adhere to the protocols.”

Asia Pacific Report publishes The National articles with permission.

Governor Powes Parkop says there will be no lockdown in Papua New Guinea’s National Capital District (NCD) despite a second spike in covid-19 cases.

“We surely cannot afford to lock down NCD again because the economy of the country is in a precarious position,” he stressed firmly amid rumours being spread of a second lockdown, especially on social media.

“As the governor of our capital city, I am not going to entertain, discuss or even consider a second lockdown,” he said.

• READ MORE: Spate of PNG covid-19 cases include national pandemic chief
• No 2 in PNG covid-19 response dies
• Other PNG covid-19 reports

“The covid-19 pandemic and the economic downturn are two equally compelling crises challenging the country. But the impact of an economic meltdown would be more severe than the impact of covid-19 in Papua New Guinea.”

He said he did not want to see more people getting unemployed or going into part-time employment.

“We are not going to and I will not support any plans or suggestions to further restrict or lock down the city that will severely affect the functioning, normalcy and ability of the businesses to be carried out daily.

“[The economy] has suffered severely since March 2020 and it’s just recovering.

‘We need economy to start growing’
“We need the economy to start growing again. We need to stimulate the economy.

“Many of our young people who (completed) school last year are seeking employment which we must create for them.

“Many who have been laid off or gone into part (time jobs) are trying to get into small-to-medium enterprises.

“A lockdown will surely strain the economy further and therefore sufferings for the people. I don’t want to imagine the consequences of an economic meltdown in our city and country.

“This is why I am adamant that there won’t be any restrictions or lockdown.

“All we have to do, and what I want to encourage, is for all of us to adhere to covid-19 prevention protocols so that everything will remain open and we proceed with reviving our country’s economy.”

RNZ Pacific reports that the deputy head of PNG’s National Pandemic Response to covid-19, Dr Paison Dakulala, died today.

PNG Police Commissioner David Manning, who is also the man leading the response, issued a statement this evening.

Lulu Mark is a reporter for The National. Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.

Papua New Guinean health authorities are struggling to gauge the extent of the country’s latest covid-19 outbreak.

More than 100 new confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in the past several days, taking the total number to 1111. The National Pandemic Controller’s office reported 34 new cases overnight.

But concern is rising over the limitations of PNG’s testing – with only around 50,000 people having been tested so far in a country of eight million.

• READ MORE: Spate of PNG covid-19 cases include national pandemic chief
• Other PNG coronavirus reports

Health Minister Jelta Wong admits that testing capabilities are limited around the country, but said testing would be boosted in the next couple of weeks.

“From the survey that we’ve done with how [much] testing equipment and testing UTMs [universal transport mediums] we have in the country, we should be able to get a fair idea of the outbreak,” Wong said.

A better idea of the outbreak’s extent should become clear in coming weeks, he explained, as a team of health workers was deployed to outer provinces to ensure protocols are being followed.

“It’s a work in progress. We’re (vying) with other countries just to get more testing capabilities and testing equipment.

“There’s a shortage in our country, and we’ve ordered more to ensure that our testing capabilities are up to standard.”

Cases among MPs
The minister confirmed that seven MPs had tested positive for covid-19 so far.

While at least three cases were reported late last year, Wong said there were currently two active cases among MPs.

Speculation is rife that one of those infected is Prime Minister James Marape who told social media last week that he had a fever.

But Marape’s office earlier this week denied that he tested positive, while Wong said he could not name the MP cases.

“But they followed all the protocols and we made sure that they were well isolated. From that we’ve slowed the spread down from the government side of things,” the minister said.

Urgent capacity required
Meanwhile, the National Pandemic Controller, David Manning, has ordered the immediate use of the Rita Flynn sporting complex in Port Moresby as a temporary field hospital.

Manning said the complex was urgently needed due to an upsurge in cases in the capital, which includes himself and two members of his family.

“The isolation ward at the Port Moresby General Hospital and the Gerehu hospitals are full and it is critical that Rita Flynn is made available as a temporary field hospital for covid-19 patients, in particular, so that both PMGH and Gerehu can continue to serve the public without risking the health of inpatients and staff.

“It is a matter of national importance that PNG continues to take strong measures to protect the health of our people,” said the Controller who is in isolation but continues to work.

New cases
The latest 34 cases were reported in the Western and New Ireland provinces, and the National Capital District.

PNG Health Authorities said all but five of these 34 cases showed symptoms of covid-19 while the rest were asymptomatic at the time of testing.

The Western Province reported 23 positive cases of which 20 are males and three females. The youngest of the 23 positive cases is 19 and the oldest is 61. Of the 23 cases, two showed symptoms of the virus while 21 were asymptomatic. All 23 cases are from the North Fly area.

In the New Ireland Province, a 57-year-old female is the latest to be confirmed positive. She was experiencing a cough, headache and running nose at the time of testing.

The country’s covid-19 cases as a result stands at 1111 with 10 known deaths.

Seventeen provinces including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville have reported cases.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s covid-19 cases have jumped to more than 1000, including the National Pandemic Controller and members of his family.

Eight new covid-19 cases were reported in the country over the weekend taking the country’s number of infections to 1056.

The latest cases were reported in East New Britain, Madang and in the National Capital District.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid-19 reports

Ages ranged from an infant of five months old to a 43-year-old woman.

The eight new infections follow 59 positive results reported on Friday.

Ten cases out of the total have resulted in fatalities while 200 people are currently in isolation.

Seventeen provinces, including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (AROB,) have reported covid cases.

Pandemic controller has covid-19
PNG’s Pandemic Response Controller David Manning is one of those people who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Two members of Manning’s family have also tested positive and are in isolation.

Manning said his covid results were confirmed over the weekend.

He said given the nature of his job and with the high level of exposure to the infection it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Manning said he had always been impressing upon citizens the need for covid-19 tests so that they could know their status and protect their family.

“I have been telling people to be tested for covid-19 and as the Controller I had to take the test. I am glad I did, so I am now taking measures to protect my family.

“I urge everyone to go to your nearest health centre and get tested. It is by knowing your status you can then take steps to protect your loved ones, especially the most vulnerable including the old and those with existing medical conditions,” Manning said.

Covid ‘not a death sentence’
He told the public not to be be afraid, saying although covid-19 was five times worse than getting the normal flu, testing positive for the coronavirus was not a death sentence.

“Statistics have indicated most people have recovered from covid-19.”

Meanwhile, Manning expressed serious concerns about the low number of covid-19 tests being done in PNG.

“Our covid-19 response is more than 12 months in place but we have only tested about 50,000 people. This is roughly 0.5 percent of the PNG population.

“I want to see more tests being done around the country so that we can have a fair idea of where the pandemic is in PNG and take measures to mitigate and contain it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An expatriate who tested positive for the covid-19 coronavirus last week has been admitted to a private hospital in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby, an official has confirmed.

Pacific International Hospital (PIH) chief executive officer Colonel Sandeep Shaligram told
The National the case had been immediately reported to the Covid-19 National Control Centre (NCC) when the man tested positive.

He said it was the only confirmed as a covid-19 case when tested at the hospital last week.

• READ MORE: Covid cases in CNMI go to 129 as vaccinations roll out
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Colonel Shaligram said the hospital had reported the case to the NCC when the man was tested positive and admitted.

He also confirmed that another patient admitted was medically evacuated overseas but said the illness was not related to the Covid-19.

Shaligram said the only other case that had tested positive at the hospital was from  samples received from East New Britain last week which was also reported to the NCC.

“As soon as a test is returned positive, we report it to the NCC and they do the contact tracing,” he said.

Male expatriate aged about 50
According to sources, the patient currently admitted is a male expatriate aged around 50 who is feeling better and wanting to be medically evacuated overseas.

A woman who took the man to the hospital had tested negative.

The case of the Port Moresby man currently admitted at PIH was, however, not included in the NCC update circulated to the media last week.

It is not known what steps had been taken by the NCC to conduct contact tracing.

The only two cases in Port Moresby reported by the centre were of a 47-year-old woman and an 89-year-old man.

Attempts by The National to get comments from the Health Department and the Deputy National Pandemic Response Controller were not successful.

National cases total now 834
The national total for covid-19 cases stands at 834 as of last Thursday.

It included a 48-year-old male mining contractor at Ok Tedi Mine who was tested positive on his return to work in North Fly.

He was not showing any symptoms of the covid-19 at the time of testing but swab samples returned positive.

According to the NCC, 19 cases of covid-19 were reported last week from around the country.

Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.

Port Moresby may need to expand its covid-19 isolation facilities quickly and effectively in case a big spike in cases occurs, a doctor says.

Rita Flynn isolation facility manager Dr Gary Nou said it would be a disaster if the spread of covid-19 in the capital city continued to increase “exponentially”.

He said the Rita Flynn facility had 50 beds and 38 patients on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – WHO says ‘vaccine nationalism’ cannot beat the virus

The facility can accommodate 76 beds, and possibly be stretched to 100 if needed. But it cannot exceed 100.

The number of cases in Port Moresby reached 139 on Wednesday (the national total was 163) – with the number of active cases well above 50.

Dr Nou said one of the biggest problems faced at Rita Flynn was sanitation.

The facility has only four toilets for men and four for women.

Room for up to 100 people
He said the facility might have to isolate up to 100 people at any one time.

There is an option of using the Taurama Aquatic Indoor Centre and hospitals as isolation centres.

“If we don’t isolate (positive cases), we are letting the infection spread in the community,” Dr Nou said.

One plan was to have mild cases isolated in a bigger facility, moderate cases isolated at Rita Flynn, and the critically sick isolated at the Port Moresby General Hospital or in an intensive care unit facility.

The trend globally is that 85 percent of the cases are mild and asymptomatic, and 15 per cent require some form of medical care, with 5 per cent of those requiring critical to high dependency care.

“Say we have 1000 positive cases, 15 per cent of that (150) will need oxygen or some kind of therapy or care, and 5 percent of that will need to go to the Port Moresby General Hospital,” he said.

“Even 1000 cases is too much.

‘Flatten the curve’
“That’s why we keep telling people to flatten the curve by washing hands, wearing mask and maintain social distancing.

“It is about slowing the spread so that we don’t have the hospitals overwhelmed. We can manage slowly.

“We need to slow down the spread so that not many people will go to the hospital at the same time.”

He also pointed out that there were also non-coronavirus patients to think about who needed special care.

“If the Intensive Care Unit is full of covid-19 patients, a snakebite patient who also needs ventilation may die because all the ventilators are taken up,” he said.

Meanwhile, acting Health Secretary Dr Paison Dakulala said the surge in cases in Port Moresby, Morobe and other centres was worrying.

He said the capacity of the Rita Flynn facility could be expended but the problem was the lack of sanitation.

Dr Dakulala said work led by the NCD Health Authority to establish swabbing and testing sites in the city was continuing.

Lulu Mark is a reporter for The National newspaper in Port Moresby.

A medical authority has warned that the spike in covid-19 cases in Papua New Guinea is to be expected and could reach thousands between September and December, reports The National today.

Professor Glen Mola had predicted early last month, when the number of cases of infection had been below 20, that there would be a surge.

He told The National yesterday that the ongoing increase would put a strain on PNG’s health system.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – Spain sets post-lockdown record as cases surge

Professor Mola, a research doctor and consultant who heads the Reproductive Health and Obstetrics department of the University of Papua New Guinea’s School of Medicine and Health Services, called on all Papua New Guineans to work together to “flatten the curve”.

“There is no sudden spike in infections,” he said. “This is the expected trend in infections.”

Meanwhile, The National has also reported that the first three Australian medical personnel have arrived to help the nation deal with the covid crisis, with more help to come if the situation worsens.

Australian High Commissioner Jon Philp said the three included team leader and clinical management expert Dr Mark Little, a primary and emergency care nurse, and an expert clinical adviser.

Seven-day quarantine
The three have to go through a seven-day quarantine before they can start their work.

“The team will provide support in areas like case management, emergency management, and epidemiology, testing processes systems and logistics,” Philp said.

“They will consult with experts from the Health Department, the government and other stakeholders as to the country’s needs.”

The three, part of the seven-member Australian medical assistance team (AustMat), arrived in Port Moresby from Brisbane.

They will also assist in other areas the PNG government may need help.

“If the virus continues to spread in PNG, there is a possibility to recommend a second larger AustMat team which could arrive in a number of weeks,” Philip said.

Papua New Guinea has reported 153 cases as at yesterday, with 101 active, two deaths and 50 recovered.

16 cases health workers
National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning said 16 of the cases were health workers such as laboratory scientists, doctors, ward clerks and medical students.

“The rest include public servants, students and patients at the Port Moresby General Hospital.”

Controller Manning has also issued 11 new orders, including the closure of the Boroko market, and the closure of bottle shops on Friday and Saturday. The 14-day shutdown in Port Moresby is expected to end next week.

“There is community transmission in the National Capital District and we all have to support efforts to contain the spread of the virus in the city,” he said.

He said more testing sites had been set up in Port Moresby “to control the spread of the virus in the city”.

In Lae City, Papua New Guinea’s second-largest city, there are seven urban clinics, each serving between 100 and 150 patients a day.  They get their medical supplies form the Government Area Medical Store (AMS) in Lae.

The AMS  in Lae also supplies the Highlands and the rest of Momase.

For the last six years, staff at the clinics have  been battling  medicine shortages.  You can see,  first hand,  how the medicine shortage affects people in Lae.

READ MORE: PNG faces ‘catastrophe’ if no crisis action taken

At Buimo Clinic on Friday,  a mother and baby came in  for treatment.  She  was  told that the last bottles of Amoxicillin suspensions would be given for her child  and that she  would have to go to a pharmacy to complete the treatment course.

The woman’s name is Merut Kilamu.  She lives with her family at Bundi Camp in Lae.  She is not just a statistic.  She is a real person who is bearing the brunt of the ongoing medicine shortages.

“Sometimes, we are able to buy the medicine,” she says. “Other times,  when we don’t have the money, we can’t buy what we need.”

Patients go from the clinics to  Angau Hospital in the hope that they will get  the medicines  they need. But Angau can’t handle the numbers.  Hospital staff have even  posted on Facebook saying they too need the basic supplies of antibiotics, antimalarial drugs and consumables like gauze, gloves and syringes.

Hospitals and clinics have become little more than prescription factories channeling their patients to pharmacies who charge the patients upwards of K40 (about NZ$18) for medicines. Pharmacies are profiting from the desperation and ill health of the Papua New Guineans.

Prices increased
In 2017, when clinics ran out of antimalarial drugs, pharmacies increased the prices.

In some instances, officers in charge of clinics felt the need to negotiate with pharmacies to keep their prices within an affordable range.  It is difficult for staff in smaller clinics to send away patients knowing they can’t afford  to pay for medicines.

“Sometimes, we can’t send them away. Staff have to fork out the money to help them pay,” says Miriam Key, nurse manager at Buimo  clinic.

This is a nationwide medicine shortage!

As much as  the politicians dislike it, social media gives a pretty accurate dashboard view of the health system from the end user.  Charles Lee posted on Facebook about how the medicine shortage was affecting his family in Mt Hagen.

“Relatives in Hagen have flown to POM to seek medical treatment because of a shortage of drugs in Hagen.”

His post drew more than 20 comments.

Gloria Willie  said from Mt Hagen:

“They just discharged a relative from ICU and we are taking her to Kundjip (Jiwaka Province)  today and if they are not allowed to receive  medical attention then, we are also planning to bring her to port Moresby. It is really frustrating.  But because of our loved ones, we are trying any possible way to have them treated.”

‘Stay at home’
Melissa Pela responded saying:

“Same here in Kavieng. Patients told to buy Panadol and keep at home. If you feel something like fever/running nose etc.. just take it. They say treat it before it becomes serious because there is simply no medicine.”

The officer in charge of Barevaturu clinic in Oro Province, Nigel Tahima,  said by phone,  the  they are seeing an increase in the number of patients  because other clinics just don’t have  medicine.

The reports are flooding in from all over the country. There are too many to mention in one blog post.

If urban clinics are a gauge to measure the flow of medicines from the AMS to the patient, you can imagine what rural clinics are going through.

They are too far from the AMSs and too far to adequately monitor. The only way to get an understanding of their problems is when staff make contact or when you go there.

Scott Waide’s blog columns are frequently published by Asia Pacific Report with permission. He is also EMTV deputy news editor based in Lae.

• More PNG health stories
  

Papua New Guinea is about to host some of the world’s most powerful leaders at the APEC summit. But as PNG’s moment in the spotlight approaches, RNZ Pacific journalist Johnny Blades asks in a special Insight report today how the poorest of APEC’s members is looking after its citizens at a time of social turmoil in the country.

Driving through the countryside on our way to Port Moresby, the surrounding hills were so parched it seemed that only the hardiest of trees could ever grow here.

But as my Papua New Guinean friend Junior said from behind the wheel of the Land Cruiser, the city was growing so fast it would probably soon spread well beyond the trees anyway.

Half an hour out of PNG’s capital we stopped to get a drink at a roadside stall, where the desolation of not only the landscape but the local people came into sharp focus.

LISTEN: Johnny Blades previews APEC on RNZ Insight

A middle aged man approached our Land Cruiser and asked whether we could give him, his wife, and their two small children a lift into PNG’s capital.

His brow was pursed in troubled lines, the gauntness of his wife was striking. They climbed in, out of the searing dry heat of the Central Province seaboard, and the man introduced himself as Ken Auda.

He explained that he and family were heading from their village to Port Moresby General Hospital.

Despite chronic drug shortages at the hospital, they were desperate to get hold of painkillers for his wife who had cervical cancer, a leading killer of PNG women.

Struggling for a cure
“According to doctors’ examination, they found that ‘your wife will not live (for much longer)’,” Auda explained.

“It gives me financial problems, but I know that I’m struggling my best for my wife to be cured.”

His wife next to him stared out the Land Cruiser’s front window, neither engaging in the conversation nor meeting eye. Their two kids were pre-schoolers. It was hard to tell the age of Auda and his wife. They looked around 60 but they could have been 40 – Papua New Guineans do not generally enjoy longevity.

Cervical cancer is just one of numerous health crises in PNG. Amid chronic shortages of medicines and complacencies around vaccination programmes, meant diseases like polio, malaria and TB have re-emerged, HIV AIDS is resurgent.

Shortages of basic drugs and supplies, echo shortages of health workers, rather like the situation in schools, where there are often not enough teachers for overcrowded classrooms, where up to 70 students can be taught at once, or funding shortfalls force closure.

Grassroots communities around this country of eight million people are resilient, but there’s no escaping the lapsing state of basic services around the country.

Yet according to the current government, led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, a unique opportunity for prosperity looms on PNG’s near horizon.

Biggest event
For the past four years, it has increasingly been preoccupied with preparing to host a meeting of leaders from major world powers, the biggest event to take place in this country.

Now, just a couple weeks out from the APEC Leaders Summit, big road and venue constructions are nearing completion and APEC Haus, a grand new national identity building shaped as a traditional sea vessel, has been unveiled on Port Moresby’s waterfront.

“In school I found out that APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation,” Auda said, “but actually… what is APEC?”

APEC, according to PNG’s Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel, was “part of selling the country”.

“We need investment, we need partnerships, we need capital to develop our country. So APEC is going to present a wonderful marketing opportunity,” he explained.

“Because there’s so many opportunities with the natural wealth that we have and the beautiful people that we have and the wonderful culture that we have. This Asia Pacific region is going to be the major growth driver in the coming years. PNG is well placed here.”

Here at the junction of Asia and the Pacific, 2018 is turning out to be a landmark year, but perhaps for reasons other than what the government projected

Tribal violence
Tribal violence surged again in the Highlands, adding to the death toll from lingering fighting between supporters of rival candidates in last year’s elections. It’s worsened the suffering of a region reeling from February’s magnitude 7.5 earthquake disaster which caused almost 200 deaths and widespread devastation of homes and buildings.

As if that wasn’t enough, a state of emergency was declared in Southern Highlands after major political unrest erupted again in June. The sight of one of the national carrier’s planes destroyed at Mendi airport during the unrest was shocking for Papua New Guineans. Then last month they saw images of a second Air Niugini plane written off, sinking in the sea off an airstrip in Micronesia

Symbolism means a lot in APEC year, and the government’s many critics see signs the country is on the verge of social breakdown.

But the government has trucked on relentlessly with its infrastructure drive for APEC, depending heavily on assistance from the likes of China, with Australia, New Zealand and others chipping in significantly to help PNG pull off the summit.

While Port Moresby may have newly sealed roads in time for the summit, the highway leading into the capital was frequently pot-holed, and even a skilled driver like Junior was having troubled navigating them.

Gripping at the seat, Auda said, in Port Moresby this year, it has been impossible to escape the APEC hoo-ha. But prepared to give it a chance, he suggested APEC could be a potential band-aid for his country.

“APEC should be supplying us some kind of services like education, road infrastructure and health,” he explained.

Election plan
Auda revealed that he intended to stand for a seat in the next local level government election.

“If I win a seat, then I will start putting my submission to (the government), a strategy plan for pushing through government services.”

As Auda outlined his practical plans for the future, his wife, who would probably not live to see him don his campaign rosette, continued to stare out the window.

Only when her little kids started arguing over a fidget spinner did she snap out of it, tending to them affectionately, before taking up a thousand-yard stare again

Promises of “development” have long been a feature of the country’s politics, but rarely come to fruition. Some big resource projects have got off the ground, but the benefit flows have been uneven.

It’s hard for people to swallow the government’s claims that hosting APEC, all its hundreds of meetings this year and the big upcoming summit, will benefit PNG’s general population.

“People say that because of this APEC, all the funds are being misused on APEC,” said Ken, shaking his head

Maserati outcry
This month there was a public outcry over the government’s purchase of 40 Maserati cars and other luxury vehicles to use for transporting leaders at the summit.

The cars were “being committed to be paid for by the private sector…at no overall cost to the State”, PNG’s APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko said.

We came into the city by the seaside village of Hanuabada, with its houses on stilts above the inshore waters of the harbour.

Here we dropped off the family where they’d be able to catch a bus onwards.

“I have a hope which is Jesus Christ, that my wife will stay until whatever God wants,” said Auda before getting out of the vehicle.

His wife was still staring far away as we drove on. I followed her gaze, which led across the bay to the growing skyline of Port Moresby’s CBD.

The afternoon light bounced off the big buildings.

Just around the corner, on the reclaimed foreshore, APEC Haus stood glistening. Ready or not, PNG’s moment in the sun is coming.

The APEC summit begins on the November 17.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

• While PNG promotes APEC big money, PNG youth are building grassroots resilience