Fiji announces two new community Covid-19 cases

Fiji's Health Ministry has announced a further two cases of Covid-19 in the community today.

It comes as six new cases were discovered yesterday, all in quarantine.

Of the two new cases today, one can be linked to an existing cluster while the other has yet to be linked to a known outbreak.

It brings the total number of active cases in the Pacific nation to 20.

Fiji went into a 14-day lockdown on April 26 after several cases of the virus emerged.

Air New Zealand announced yesterday that it's cancelled a Fiji passenger service this week due the Covid-19 lockdown.

It comes after Fiji Airways announced on Monday that all international passenger repatriation flights into and out of Fiji have been cancelled until May 2, 2021.

Health officials in Fiji are pushing the stay-at-home message as well as encouraging hygiene measures such as mask-wearing, sanitising and physical distancing. 

Meanwhile, more Covid-19 testing equipment has been supplied to the Fiji Centre for Disease Control, today.

"The equipment, including four new GeneXpert machines and kits of reagents that are essential to the ongoing PCR tests are procured with the support from the Pacific Community, UNICEF and WHO," a Health Ministry spokeperson said.

Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete says "this will further boost their work in identifying Covid-19 cases, as new cases that are locally transmitted are being recorded for over a week now".

The three organisations reaffirmed their support to Fiji. WHO is in the process of procuring three more GeneXpert machines with 16-module configuration as well as cartridges so that the testing capacity can be further boosted. 

Shipments of more Personal Protective Equipment are also on the way supported by the three organisations.