AUSTRALIAN MEDICS HERE
The Australian Medical Assistance (AUSMAT) team arrived last night. Australian High Commission to Fiji John Feakes said: “They are here to support their Fijian colleagues and they are not leading the response. They are here as advisories capacity to help the Fijian response.
“We are very grateful for the speed with which the Fiji system has moved to enable them to enter Fiji.
“There will be six clinician’s personnel who are very experienced and are accompanied by a logistician and a department of foreign affairs liaison officer.”
Mr Feakes acknowledged all the frontline workers, Fiji Police Force, Republic of Fiji Military Forces and all those involved in fighting the spread of COVID-19.
More vaccines
Minister for Health and Medical Services Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete thanked the Australian Government, ‘our vuvale’, for their timely support with the arrival of another 250,000 vaccines.
“The fact that we are celebrating the 250,000 vaccines of the million that’s been committed to coming to Fiji. It has at a timely moment specifically as we roll out our vaccination programme with the deployable plan we have in place,” Dr Waqainabete said.
“We want to thank the High Commission for the support for us in many other forms; the technical support that we are receiving through the facility and defect and the support to strengthening our lab capacity and also the work we are doing together to be able to bring the AUSMAT team in to help us.
“Some of them are familiar names they have been here before and they know what it is in Fiji and our officials have a constant discussion with them.
“We are thankful that the support is not only limited to vaccines but also be able to deliver the vaccination but also round it in terms of our covid response.
“The public health safety measures similar to that was done in Australia and other places in the world are so important that vaccines are very an important component of our containment strategy.
“If we all as Fijians abide by the guidance provided through experts and actually practice it, we will be able to help support stopping the transmission of the virus.”
The AUSMAT team included members from Australia and New Zealand.