Australia will immediately supply 8,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine and critical health equipment to Papua New Guinea (PNG) due to rising new coronavirus infections in the country, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday.
It will also ask AstraZeneca and European authorities to grant access to one million doses of vaccines contracted in the country for PNG, Morrison said.
Australia will also suspend all charter flights for two weeks starting Wednesday at midnight and travel to the country, the prime minister said:
“We will suspend all charter flights from Papua New Guinea to Australia, with limited exemptions for medevac and other critical flights.
We will reduce passenger ceilings by a quarter from effective flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane at midnight tonight.
We will suspend all Australian travel exemptions to Papua New Guinea, except for essential and critical workers, including humanitarian and medevac-related activities. ”
Of particular concern are workers commuting between PNG and the northern state of Queensland.
Morrison added:
“We will strengthen the healthcare we provide by providing essential PPE to PNG. This includes 1m surgical masks, 200,000 P295 masks, 100,000 gowns, 100,000 goggles, 100,000 pairs of gloves, 100,000 disinfectant bottles, 20,000 face shields and 200 non-invasive fans.
Our government will also move immediately to provide 8,000 doses of our Covid-19 vaccine stocks from our domestic stocks to support the vaccination of front-line health workers in PNG next week. ”
Australian Medical Director, Paul Kelly, added that the situation in PNG was deteriorating:
In the last two weeks and very quickly, the situation has changed in Papua New Guinea.
Of the cases diagnosed in PNG, half of them have been diagnosed in the last two weeks since the beginning of the pandemic. Acknowledging that they don’t have the resources for mass testing as we have in Australia, so any number you see from Papua New Guinea of cases and even deaths will be a major underestimation. There is a large outbreak of Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea. We know this from places that can do tests.
He says half of the women who are hospitalized in Port Moresby because of pregnancy are positive. There are also a large number of infected health workers, he says.
You can read more about the situation of pregnant women at Port Moresby General Hospital below: