PNG announces coronavirus measures
19 March 2020
NEWS DESK
| EMTV
PORT MORESBY - The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) has been put on alert as the health minister, Jelta Wong, formally declared coronavirus as a ‘quarantinable disease’ under the country’s health laws.
On Tuesday, the PNG national security council met to discuss additional control measures in light of the worsening crisis in Australia and surrounding countries.
Prime Minister James Marape announced that overseas flights from Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan, Sydney and Nadi will cease as of next Sunday and there will be controlled entry from Brisbane, Cairns and Singapore.
Flights are now being scaled down.
“We have put the military on standby to assist if a first case is established,” Mr Marape said.
“Their medical facilities and officers who are doctors and engineers will be engaged for now and future pandemics.
“They have given us the Taurama medical centre and 10 medical personnel for use,” he said.
Through a government gazettal notice, health minister Wong listed a series of actions supported by existing quarantine legislation stating the magnitude of the pandemic warranted the measures.
The countries that fall under the 14 day pre-entry quarantine include 27 European member states. Australia, where the majority of expatriate mine workers come from, has been excluded.
Chloroquine certainly saved my life in Port Moresby in 1975. I had been bitten by mozzies in the Waigani Swamps on the Brown River in the wee small hours.
Twelve hours later I had what could have turned into cerebral malaria. Massive sweating with technicolour nightmare dreaming for about 8-12 hours.
Massive doses of Chloroquine following the instructions saved me. The only time that I got Malaria in my 13 years in PNG.
Posted by: William Dunlop | 20 March 2020 at 09:53 AM
Chloroquine, the anti-malarial drug, is being talked of as an effective treatment for the coronavirus. Doctors in China, Australia and France have all had some success with it. Trump has backed it.
While it perhaps too early to be certain that chloroquine will be very effective, at the same time the Health departments and pharmacies should check their stocks of the anti-malarial medicine and make sure that stocks are adequate. A related matter is whether the former common use of Chloroquine in PNG may have the result that people in PNG are more resistant to COVID-19 ?? Who knows?
Posted by: Garry Roche | 20 March 2020 at 05:02 AM