Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong has announced 6 new COVID-19 deaths from the 16th to the 22nd of August, and this includes a 20-year-old woman.
Three deaths were reported from the Central Division and three deaths were reported from the Western Division.
Doctor Fong says the 20-year-old woman from Rakiraki died at home on 16th August. She received the first dose of the vaccine in mid-July. She did not receive the second dose of the vaccine.
The second COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old man from Tailevu who died at home on 21st August. He received the first dose of the vaccine in mid-July. He did not receive the second dose of the vaccine.
The third death is a 44-year-old man from Tailevu. He presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. He died 3 days after admission on 22nd August. He was not vaccinated.
The fourth COVID-19 death is a 50-year-old woman from Tailevu who died at home on 20th August. She presented to the Lautoka Hospital in severe respiratory distress. She was not vaccinated.
The fifth death is a 72-year-old woman from Rakiraki who died at home on 21st August. She received the first dose of the vaccine in mid-August. She did not receive the second dose of the vaccine.
The sixth COVID-19 death is a 71-year-old man from Rakiraki who died at home on 22nd August. He was not vaccinated.
There have been 4 more deaths of COVID-19 positive patients. However, these deaths have been classified as non-COVID deaths by their doctors.
Doctors have determined that their deaths were caused by serious pre-existing medical conditions and not COVID-19.
With today’s newly reported deaths, there have now been 444 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 442 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
As of August 18th, the national 7 day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is 8.
The 7 day rolling average for COVID-19 deaths per day is 2 in the Central Division 6 in the Western Division.
We also have recorded 257 COVID-19 positive patients who died from the serious medical conditions that they had before they contracted COVID-19; these are not classified as COVID-19 deaths.
There are currently 279 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital.
110 patients are admitted at the Lautoka Hospital, 39 patients are admitted at the FEMAT Field Hospital, and 130 admitted at CWM Hospital, St Giles, and Makoi.
26 patients are considered to be in severe condition and 14 are in critical condition.
4 new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Kadavu from Namalata Village bringing the total number of confirmed cases on the island to 135.
591 new cases of COVID-19 have been announced. 498 cases are from the Western Division, 89 cases are from the Central Division and 4 cases from the Eastern Division (Kadavu).
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says the situation in Kadavu continues to remain a major concern.
Doctor Fong says the clinical scoping team has put together a clinical response plan that will help to efficiently escalate their response to the expected wave of severe disease and deaths in Kadavu however they do anticipate this to be a challenging exercise.
The team is expected to depart for Kadavu over the next 2 days.
FEMAT response to Kadavu will involve both public health and clinical teams.
The clinical team will include doctors and nurses from the clinical specialized fields of medicine.
Doctor Fong says upon arrival in Kadavu the clinical team will boost up the public health response on case identification through rapid diagnostic tests, risk assessment and stratification, COVID awareness, vaccination coverage and clinical case management based on the clinical care flow pathway.
The aim will be to identify the extent of transmission, instituting containment strategies, early detection and retrieval of sick cases and minimizing deaths.
They will also work very closely with the teams from other ministries under Provincial Administrator Kadavu on community engagement.
Doctor Fong says the main goal is also to minimize severe and critical cases given the expected challenges in medical evacuation.
While they commit towards community response and engagement the logistic teams will be setting up the COVID wards and the intermediate care facilities in readiness for patients with severe COVID-19 disease.
Meanwhile there have been 616 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 19,062 active cases.
9723 active COVID cases are in the Central Division, 9203 active cases in the Western Division, 1 active case in the Northern Division (Nabouwalu) and 135 active cases in the Eastern Division (all in Kadavu).
There have been 44,118 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021.
We have recorded a total of 44,188 cases in Fiji since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 24,425 recoveries.
320,029 samples have been tested since this outbreak started in April 2021, with 362,890 tested since testing began in March 2020.
1,759 tests have been reported for August 22nd.
The 7-day daily test average is 1637 tests per day or 1.8 tests per 1,000 population. The national 7-day average daily test positivity is 31.5%.
The 7-day average of new cases per day is 514 cases per day or 581 cases per million population per day.
Doctor Fong says the daily testing numbers have also been dropping around the same time as the drop in numbers, due to the change in testing policy in Suva-Nausori.
Since July 21st, only persons that have a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 are being targeted for testing in Suva-Nausori.
This was done so that resources could be targeted to early detection, monitoring and care of persons with COVID-19 who are at higher risk of severe disease, to prevent more people succumbing to severe disease and death.
Doctor Fong says they will be transitioning to community surveillance testing as severe disease numbers and positivity rates approach the containment phase levels.
The Ministry is closely monitoring indicators such as test positivity, hospitalisations and deaths to track the progress of the outbreak in Suva-Nausori.
Doctor Fong says they are seeing increasing cases reported in the Western Division with evidence of widespread community transmission in that division.
The Northern Division remains with one active case, with all contacts in quarantine so far testing negative, and swabbing results from within the containment area, and nearby communities also returning negative.
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