6 Families in Suva Refuse Screenings, 9-Year-Old is Latest COVID-19 Victim
Minister for Health and Medical Services Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete expressed his disappointment with six families who refused screenings from health personnel at their house in the Suva containment area yesterday.
This comes after the announcement made by the Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama yesterday, that a 16th case of COVID-19 was confirmed.
Dr Waqainabete said it was important for people to understand that the Health Ministry, under the COVID-19 Public Health Act, have powers and regulations to conduct and protect the health of all Fijians. “Our team went to them again this morning because it was important that we screen as much as we can in our containment efforts.
“6000 Fijians in the greater Suva area have been screened as of today (yesterday) since the mobile fever clinics were conducted in Suva on April 6.”
Patients one, two and five tested again, still positive
Dr Waqainabete also revealed that Patients One, Two and Five were re-tested positive after completing 20 days of isolation in hospital.
This, he said, was in line with the protocol of testing patients after 21 days of isolation.
“For the first case, it has been more than 21 days since he has been isolated. We have re-tested the first case, second case, who has been in isolation for 20 days and the fifth case, who has been in isolation for 19 days and they have all returned positive.
“So you can see that this virus lingers on for quite a period of time despite the patient becoming well and asymptomatic. All these cases continue to be in hospital until they are negative.”
The 16th COVID-19 case
The nine-year-old granddaughter of Patient Eight – the gentleman of Soasoa in Labasa – is the latest confirmed case of COVID-19 in the country.
This brings the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country to 16.
Mr Bainimarama said this was ascertained after the results of 32 samples were received yesterday.
“After testing another 32 samples, today, we received confirmation of another COVID-positive case that we had been anticipating, the 9-year-old granddaughter of the gentleman in Labasa who traveled from India,” Mr Bainimarama said.
“This young girl lived in the Soasoa Settlement and has been in isolation since April 4. While she wasn’t showing any symptoms, we knew she had a high risk of being infected given her close contact with her grandfather.
“We had her tested and she was confirmed positive late this (yesterday) morning.
“This is the sixth confirmed case stemming from the gentleman in Labasa and it once again goes to show how long and dangerous a chain of transmission can grow if our public health directives are blatantly ignored.”
He said the latest patient’s risk of infecting others was extremely low as she had been in isolation at the Labasa Hospital since she developed symptoms.