PNG's Western Province Records Eleven New cases of COVID - 19

Eleven new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases from Western Province were reported in the last 24 hours, raising PNG's total COVID-19 cases to 565.

Western Province has 202 cases whilst the National Capital District (NCD) maintains the highest number of cases with 334.

All the new cases come from North fly electorate and with ages ranging from 13 to 21. There are 10 men and one woman all of whom are asymptomatic.

Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS, Hon. Sir Puka Temu, today said he has issued instruction for much of the attention to be given to both Western Province and NCD given the rate at which the positive cases are recorded in the two provinces.

“I have issued instructions to my Department to ensure both manpower and resources are well distributed to these two areas to address the rising positive cases there," said Sir Puka.

Sir Puka said this today when accepting the donation of ventilators from the Chinese Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

To date, 26,620 people have been tested for coronavirus in PNG. Additional 134 samples are pending laboratory results.

A total of 537 people have recovered from COVID-19 whilst there are 21 active cases that are being isolated. The country’s death toll from COVID-19 remains at seven.

There are 13 provinces in the country that have confirmed COVID-19 cases:

Provinces Confirmed cases

NCD 334

Western Province 202

Central 7

Morobe 5

West New Britain 5

East Sepik 3

East New Britain 2

Milne Bay 2

Southern Highlands 1

Eastern Highlands 1

West Sepik 1

New Ireland 1

Autonomous Region of Bougainville 1

Globally, since the start of the outbreak, there has been a total 37,705,125 confirmed cases and the death toll stands at 1,080,602.

There was an increase of 274,440 confirmed cases in the last 24 hours.

In the Western Pacific region, a total of 15 countries/territories had confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases for the region to 655,253 cases and 14,350 deaths.

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