Papua New Guinea's main hospitals are again under strain due to a surge in Covid-19 case numbers.
Port Moresby General Hospital Photo: POM General Hospital
The head of Port Moresby General, Dr Paki Molumi, said at present 60 percent of patients arriving with cold or flu symptoms tested positive for the virus.
Dr Molumi said they were treating every Covid case as being of the Delta strain.
"In the last six, seven days we've had an increasing number of patients coming to our hospital with Covid," he explained.
"Those who come in to our clinics or emergency department that have symptoms - cough and flu-like symptoms - we do Covid tests (on them). The positivity rate has increased from almost 30 percent to 60 percent yesterday.
"Our isolation facility, currently that area is completely full. So we have opened up another ward to accomodate the next lot of patients."
Two other main hospitals - Mt Hagen General and Goroka Base Hospital in the Highlands - are facing similar situations.
Goroka's hospital in particular has a critical shortage of oxygen supplies to be able to treat patients experiencing severe respiratory illness.
The hospital reportedly scaled down its operations amid the surge of cases last week.
The situation with Covid in EHP is a crises unfolding before our eyes. Lack of ICU care, dwindling oxygen supply, staff shortages, drug & hospital consumable shortages. The list is endless.
— Thomas G. Johns (@thomas_tj93) October 1, 2021
Hospitals in the two provinces on the border with Indonesia, Western and West Sepik, have also been stretched by a surge in Delta cases over the past few weeks.
An earlier wave of the pandemic saw Covid cases peak between February and May, when around a thousand new cases were recorded each week in PNG. Moresby General and other hospitals were overrun, and many health workers in the capital were infected, and in some cases became seriously ill.
Health authorities in PNG continue to urge people to take up the opportunity of getting vaccinated against Covid, without delay.
However, according to PNG's National Control Centre for Covid-19, only 185,600 people have been vaccinated, or around 2 percent of the population.
The vaccine message was not getting through to most people, Dr Molumi admitted.
"Vaccine hesitancy is quite high, even among our staff as well we've got less than ten percent of our nurses vaccinated. So we still can't convince them to get vaccinated."
The Control Centre's latest statistics say over 21,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19 to date, and 234 people are reported to have died from the virus - but testing is limited, and the reporting of cause of death is not routine in PNG.
Goroka's university in lockdown
The University of Goroka in has gone into a two-week lockdown.
A memorandum to staff and students from university management cites an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases on campus in the past month.
Two staff members were reported to have died due to Covid. Furthermore, an on-campus isolation centre is full.
Eastern Highlands is one of several PNG provinces where new restrictions have been introduced in recent weeks due to spikes in Covid cases.
The province's renown cultural festival, the Goroka Show, was cancelled for the first time last month.
The provincial pandemic committee has introduced a 5pm to 6am curfew until mid-October.
