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 he said Wednesday.
It will also ask AstraZeneca and European authorities to grant access to one million doses of vaccines contracted in the country by PNG, Morrison said.
Australia will also suspend all charter flights for two weeks from midnight on Wednesday and outbound trips 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 limits on a quarter of the flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane, effective midnight tonight.
We will suspend all travel exemptions for Australians in Papua New Guinea, except for essential and critical workers, including humanitarian and medevac-related activities. “
Of particular concern are workers moving between PNG and the northern state of Queensland.
Morrison added:
“We will be strengthening the medical support we offer by giving essential PPE to PNG. It includes 1m surgical masks, 200,000 P295 masks, 100,000 gowns, 100,000 glasses, 100,000 pairs of gloves, 100,000 bottles of disinfectant, 20,000 face protectors and 200 non-invasive fans.
Our government will also immediately move to donate 8,000 doses of our Covid-19 vaccine stocks from our national stocks to support the vaccination of front-line health workers in PNG starting next week. ”
Australian Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, he added that the situation in PNG was deteriorating:
Over the last few 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 didn’t have the resources to do massive tests like the one we have in Australia, so any number you see outside of Papua New Guinea of cases and even deaths will be a major understatement. There is a big outbreak of Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea. We know this from sites that can test.
He says half of the women admitted to Port Moresby hospitals due to 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: