Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says day 4 tests for all except 2 primary contacts of the COVID-19 case reported from Nabouwalu in Vanua Levu have returned negative.
He says results of the remaining 2 primary contacts are pending.
Doctor Fong says the health service set up at the Immaculate Junior Secondary School is working well.
Health teams from Labasa Hospital are travelling daily to Bua Nursing Station and Lekutu Health Centre to provide health services to the community outside the Nabouwalu Containment Zone.
He says border controls at Nabouwalu and all other Northern ports have been reinforced.
Doctor Fong says activities that will be carried out inside the Nabouwalu Containment Zone include 3 phases of screening and swabbing for the containment zone population.
In the first phase of screening, 367 persons were swabbed. All have tested negative. A second round of swabbing for 217 people has been conducted with results pending.
House to house COVID-19 safe awareness programs and vaccination for the target population in the containment zone area are also underway.
Over 1000 swabs have been collected for people outside the containment zone in the villages of Nasavu, Naviqiri and Nawailevu.
Doctor Fong says in regard to the case reported from Rakiraki Village in Yale, Kadavu, given the clinical details of the case, and link to persons known to have illegally travelled between Suva and Kadavu, they have to assume there is community transmission on the island of Kadavu.
He says to help with the public health containment measures they are suspending shipping services to Kadavu for a week starting today to the 26th of August 2021.
There will also be a 14 day containment zone established for the Gasele Nursing Zone in Kadavu.
Doctor Fong says this is to localize the disease to the nursing zone area for one incubation period of 14 days and to monitor incidence and disease trends in the lockdown area within this period.
Movement between the 7 villages in the containment zone is to be restricted to reduce further spread, home quarantine of the primary contacts will be enforced, contact tracing of primary contacts and secondary contacts will continue, the identification and monitoring of vulnerable persons will be initiated and strengthened, the community engagement program will be escalated to foster COVID safe behaviour with a specific focus on protecting the vulnerable persons and vaccination rollout will be escalated and targeted to vulnerable persons.
A clinical scouting team will also be deployed this weekend to Vunisea to map out a plan to escalate clinical care capability and strengthen care access, especially to the identified vulnerable persons.
The Ministry of Health and Medical Services reiterates its call for maritime islanders to not engage in unauthorised travel to and from Viti Levu.
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