Two crew members of cargo ship test positive for COVID-19

Two crew members of the cargo ship MV Island Chief that arrived in Fiji on 2nd December 2020 have tested positive for COVID-19 and are in isolation at the Navua Hospital.

Permanent Secretary for Health Doctor James Fong says the remaining crew members will stay on the vessel and will be in quarantine waters overseen by security personnel.

He says all Fijian officials who boarded the MV Island Chief have been identified and entered into quarantine facilities.

Doctor Fong says they identified 21 close contacts of the officials that interacted with the vessel and they are placed in quarantine.

He says until they have established there no risk of transmission in the community, the CWM Hospital and the Lautoka Hospital will operate at reduced capacity.

Doctor Fong says on 2nd December 2020, the freighter MV Island Chief arrived at Lautoka port to deliver cargo, then it proceeded on to Suva port.

The Permanent Secretary says none of the crew members had disembarked from the vessel in Lautoka and Suva.

He says the vessel's last port of call was Nukualofa, Tonga where it arrived in Nukualofa and departed Nukualofa on 30th November 2020.

Doctor Fong says the information they have at the moment is that none of the crew left the vessel in Tonga.

He says the MV Island Chief had arrived in Tonga from New Zealand where it had been stationed from 16th to 25th November.

Doctor Fong has revealed that during the time in New Zealand, the vessel underwent a crew change where individuals are typically flown in from other countries to replace the existing crew.

He says their current information that all crew underwent the full 14-day quarantine and they tested negative for the virus in New Zealand before the vessel departed.

Doctor Fong says they are making contact with the New Zealand health authorities to verify this information, particularly the negative test results.

He says as is standard procedure, the vessel was guided into Suva and Lautoka port by the Fijian officers equipped with the proper personal protective equipment.

Doctor Fong says while in Fijian waters, the vessel was boarded by one shipping agent, two bio-security officers, one customs officer and three ports terminal officers.

He says as part of a document exchange, one of these individuals - a customs officer made contact with the ship crew.

Doctor Fong says the customs officer was equipped with the proper personal protective equipment and maintained a safe physical distance as much as possible.

The Permanent Secretary says the MV Island Chief was scheduled to depart for Samoa and prior to departure, the crew members needed to be tested again for COVID-19 in accordance with Samoan entry requirements.

He says to accommodate this request, a team from the Health Ministry wearing appropriate personal protective equipment boarded the vessel and collected the samples for testing from all 12 crew members.

Doctor Fong says as a result of this testing, two crew members of the MV Island Chief tested positive for COVID-19.

He says the first tested positive twice, on December 4th and December 6th.

Doctor Fong says the positive results are both what may be called in their language "weak positive " indicating that a very small amount of viral material was present in the sample.