Fiji's health authorities continue to report a drop in daily case numbers but have cautioned the public that there is no downward trend yet.
A health worker prepares a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine for a resident at a drive-through vaccination centre in Suva. Photo: AFP / Leon Lord
In its weekend update, distributed this morning, the Permanent Secretary of Health James Fong said the Fijian government was no longer looking at daily case numbers as an indicator of progress.
"The Ministry is closely monitoring other indicators such as test positivity, hospitalisations and deaths to track the progress of the outbreak in Suva-Nausori. Test positivity in Suva-Nausori was between 40-50% before the change in testing policy and has remained at this high level, which is above the national average. This is one indicator of the continuing high level of community transmission in this area," Dr Fong said.
"Our daily testing numbers have also been dropping around the same time, due to the change in testing policy in Suva-Nausori. We are likely seeing the effect of this testing policy change now in Suva-Nausori with the drop in daily reported cases. This does not mean that the outbreak is on a downward trend in the Suva-Nausori community."
The Ministry of Health had recorded 40,167 new infections since the Delta Variant outbreak began on 15 April.
There have been 10,456 cases by the morning of 15 August and despite two weeks of reduced daily case numbers, the total for the middle of the month is still 988 cases more than at the same time in July.
Fiji's total new cases in July was a huge jump to 25,363 from 3982 in June.
Deaths in the first two weeks of August is at 132 which is already four times the 32 deaths by Covid-19 recorded at the same time in July. For the entire month of July there were 218 deaths in total.
Unlike in the first two months of the pandemic when government teams - which were a hybrid of health care workers and members of the Fiji's military - and police conducted community tracing wherever new clusters could be identified, testing is now limited at health care facilities.
Photo: AFP
Testing is no longer done on every suspected case and even when conducted, swab results often don't come back for up to two weeks.
Dr Fong said that while in the western division testing was more thorough, it was not the case in the central division where the capital Suva is located because there, the MOH would only test "persons that have a higher risk of developing severe Covid-19".
"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."
Fiij's daily test positivity rate continues to remain high at 32.9 percent.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete is expected to give a parliamentary update on the outbreak today.
