{"id":126973,"date":"2021-04-19T05:27:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T05:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=187774"},"modified":"2021-04-19T05:27:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T05:27:58","slug":"beach-body-off-pacific-lpg-ship-throws-vanuatu-capital-into-covid-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/19\/beach-body-off-pacific-lpg-ship-throws-vanuatu-capital-into-covid-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach body off Pacific LPG ship throws Vanuatu capital into covid lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pacific Newsroom<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Vanuatu\u2019s capital island of Efate has gone into covid-19 lockdown for three days after a body was found on a beach near Port Vila.<\/p>\n

The body, which tested positive for covid, was that of a Filipino crewman from the British-flagged liquified petroleum gas carrier Inge Kosan<\/em>, a medium range tanker that supplies Pacific ports.<\/p>\n

Inge Kosan<\/em> was due today in Honiara, Solomon Islands, but has been detained in Port Vila.<\/p>\n

\"Inge
The MV Inge Kosan as positioned by MarineTracker. The ship is shown as a red dot. Image: TPN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Usually Inge Kosan<\/em> sails to Vanuatu from ports on Australia\u2019s east coast.<\/p>\n

The body, which has yet to be named, was found on April 11 at Pango village beach, about 11 km from where the ship is now moored.<\/p>\n

The Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office said that after the body was found it had been taken to the Vanuatu Central Hospital morgue where a covid test was conducted. It tested positive.<\/p>\n

\n

So all outbound travel from Efate island stopped for 3 days to allow contact tracing to be carried out<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ralph Regenvanu (@RRegenvanu) April 18, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Police officers who handled the body have been tested and isolated. Contact tracing is underway.<\/p>\n

Authorities said chances of community transmission were small.<\/p>\n

Vanuatu\u2019s opposition leader Ralph Regenvanu tweeted on the news: \u201cSo while imposing admirably strict quarantine protocols on all ports of entry into the country, we did not foresee that a dead body washed ashore and put in the only mortuary in the country where people gather to mourn every day could be carrying the COVID-19 virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact tracing<\/strong>
RNZ Pacific reports<\/a> that as contact tracing began today, Director-General of Health, Russell Tamata, confirmed that 16 people had been put in quarantine at Ramada Hotel.<\/p>\n

Most of them were police officers who attended the scene when the body was discovered.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Bob Loughman said business would operate as usual but he appealed to the people to abide by covid-19 safety protocols such as social distancing.<\/p>\n

The dead body of the Filipino was still at the mortuary at Vila Central.<\/p>\n

Vanuatu has reported only three previous cases of covid-19, all at the border.<\/p>\n

The British-flagged liquified petroleum gas carrier Inge Kosan. Image: TPN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Print<\/a><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pacific Newsroom Vanuatu\u2019s capital island of Efate has gone into covid-19 lockdown for three days after a body was found on a beach near Port Vila. The\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,5,365,387,4,12,4122,1723,4623],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126974,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126973\/revisions\/126974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}