Bula Vinaka. I’ll start today with better news –– we’ve added some invaluable new tools to our arsenal that will help us expand, and quicken, our COVID-19 laboratory testing. As of 9:00 this morning, we have received four new GeneXpert machines, which together have the capacity to run 384 extra COVID-19 tests in 24 hours. Combining…Read More

Bula vinaka, and good afternoon. We have received confirmation from the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit (MDU) at the Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne that recent cases of COVID-19 are of the B1617 variant that was first detected in India. As I mentioned yesterday, our contact tracing investigations meant that we already strongly suspected that this was…Read More

Bula Vinaka Fiji, This is the second day of our new lock down conditions in the Containment areas of Nadi-Lautoka and Lami-Suva-Nausori. In this update, we will announce more positive cases, however we are now able to confirm that, contrary to what we feared yesterday, we do not have a new cluster nor do we have…Read More

Yesterday we recorded four new cases of COVID in Fiji. Two of those cases are in Nadi, one in Lautoka and one in Makoi, Suva. Three of the cases involved persons who attended the funeral that we have identified as a super-spreader event, including a husband and wife who circulated through the community. They were…Read More

Bula Vinaka, everyone. We’ve run another 828 tests since yesterday with 1 new positive result. This is a new locally transmitted case of COVID-19. The patient is the 14-year-old daughter of the hotel staff who has been the central focus of our contact tracing. This daughter did travel with her mum to the funeral at…Read More