Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says COVID-19 deaths per day at a 7 day average in the Western Division now surpass the Central Division.
As of August 15th, the national 7 day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is 11.
The 7 day rolling average for COVID deaths per day in the Central Division is 5 and is now 6 in the Western Division.
There have been 8 new COVID-19 deaths from August 15th to 19th while 781 new COVID cases have been announced.
6 deaths were reported from the Central Division and 2 deaths were reported from the Western Division.
The first death is a 77-year-old man from Nakasi who died at home on 17th August. He was not vaccinated.
The second COVID-19 death is a 63-year-old man from Vatuwaqa who died at home on 17th August. He was not vaccinated.
The third death is an 88-year-old man from Ba. He presented to the Ba Mission Hospital in severe respiratory distress. His family reported that he had a history of fever, cough and shortness of breath one week prior to presentation. He died one day after admission on 18th August. He was not vaccinated.
The fourth COVID-19 death is a 54-year-old man from Suva. He presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. He died eleven days after admission on 19th August. He was not vaccinated.
The fifth death is a 60-year-old woman from Navua who died at home on 15th August. She was not vaccinated.
The sixth COVID-19 death is a 58-year-old woman from Naitasiri who died at home on 16th August. She was not vaccinated.
The seventh death is a 78-year-old woman from Sigatoka who died at home on 18th August. She was not vaccinated.
The eighth COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old man from Suva. He was declared dead on arrival by the attending medical officer at the CWM Hospital emergency department on 19th July. The announcement of this death was delayed as it was under investigation by the forensic unit of the Fiji Police Force.
One death from the Eastern Division is currently under investigation. This is a 63-year-old woman from Rakiraki Village, in Yale, Kadavu who was declared dead on arrival by the attending medical officer at the Vunisea Hospital in Kadavu on 17th August.
Her family reported that she had symptoms of cough, fever and shortness of breath.
She was swabbed as per protocol and tested positive for COVID-19. She was not vaccinated.
This death is currently classified as under investigation while awaiting investigation and issuance of a death certificate by the medical team.
Early investigations have indicated that she had contact with individuals who travelled unauthorized from Suva to Kadavu. A response team is currently onsite investigating the case and conducting public health investigations with testing and quarantine of contacts.
There have been 3 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 421 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 419 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
We have also recorded 233 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.
Of the 781 new COVID cases, 626 cases are from the Western Division, 154 cases are from the Central Division and 1 case is from the Eastern Division.
There have been 862 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 21,211 active cases.
12,940 active cases are in the Central Division, 8270 active cases in the Western Division and 1 active case in the Northern Division.
Doctor Fong also confirms the 2 repatriation cases from Suva who tested positive in a repatriation quarantine facility in the Northern Division, and announced yesterday, are not active cases, as they had previously tested positive in Suva, were counted in Central cases, and recovered, before travelling to the North.
There have been 42,541 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021.
Fiji has recorded a total of 42,611 cases since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 20,677 recoveries.
539,555 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the COVID vaccine and 223,987 have received their second doses.
This means that 92% of the target population have received at least one dose and 38.2% are now fully vaccinated nationwide.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says they are currently doing a mop-up exercise of the first dose campaign, which will allow them to specifically target specific communities with low coverage, and subsequently also correct and update the total eligible population for the current vaccination program.
Meanwhile there are currently 314 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. 119 patients are admitted to the Lautoka Hospital, 37 patients are admitted at the FEMAT Field Hospital, and 158 are admitted at the CWM Hospital, St Giles, and Makoi.
45 patients are considered to be in severe condition, and 9 are in critical condition.
313,142 samples have been tested since this outbreak started in April 2021, with 356,003 tested since testing began in March 2020.
The 7-day daily test average is 1462 tests per day or 1.7 tests per 1,000 population.
The national 7-day average daily test positivity is 38%.
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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