Two doctors who work at the Lautoka hospital are the latest cases of COVID-19 in Fiji which means we have 51 active cases.
Another 1,736 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says a 25-year-old female doctor, presented at a screening clinic with COVID-like symptoms.
She then tested positive for the virus.
The second, a 30-year-old male doctor, was tested as part of contact tracing for the first doctor.
Doctor Fong says both doctors have been entered into isolation and their close household contacts have been quarantined.
He says they are early into their investigation, but at this stage the two cases do not appear to have any links to existing cases or events of interest, such as the Tavakubu funeral.
Doctor Fong says while they did work at the Lautoka Hospital, they did not work in the isolation ward where they would have had interaction with COVID-positive patients.
He says we must treat these cases as instances of community transmission until it is proven otherwise.
The Permanent Secretary says all contacts within Lautoka Hospital will be screened, tested, and isolated as appropriate.
He says this is a massive and complex undertaking for the hospital team, and they are providing the support they need.
This includes sending in medical teams from other medical facilities to replace staff who have been identified as close contacts of these cases and stood down to be isolated.
Doctor Fong says they have one advantage as both doctors installed the careFIJI app and had it running.
He says while the contact tracing teams are conducting their work on the ground, a digital net is being cast far and wide for Fijians who may have had contact with these two doctors.
The Permanent Secretary says careFIJI has identified one contact already, and Lautoka is safer for it.
He says while these two doctors responsibly had the app running, they know the effectiveness of the app’s contact tracing function depends on how many other people also had it running on their phones.
Doctor Fong says if you do not yet have the app installed, do it right now, and make sure it is running everytime you leave the house. It will not use data, it will not chew battery but it will save lives.
