{"id":487833,"date":"2022-01-27T19:11:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T19:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=69396"},"modified":"2022-01-27T19:11:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T19:11:37","slug":"covid-19-three-more-deaths-in-solomons-as-outbreak-overwhelms-health-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/27\/covid-19-three-more-deaths-in-solomons-as-outbreak-overwhelms-health-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Three more deaths in Solomons as outbreak \u2018overwhelms\u2019 health staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/\"><em>RNZ Pacific<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Three more people have died of covid-19 in Solomon Islands raising the national tally to five.<\/p>\n<p>Health authorities confirmed the country&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/460210\/solomon-islands-reports-first-covid-19-deaths\">first two deaths on<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>During a media conference last night, Health Minister Dr Culwick Togamana said the government was expecting more cases in the coming days.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?s=Solomon+Islands+covid\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> Other Solomon Islands covid outbreak reports<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He said community transmission was now widespread in the capital Honiara and some provincial areas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For the Western Province, a surge in flu-like illness was noted in Rukutu village where we suspect a recent gathering involving those who travelled from Honiara and may have transmitted covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our team has reached the village, distributed face masks, advised on covid-19 safe measures and collected samples for testing in Gizo.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said health officials were still waiting on lab results from Australia to determine the variant they are dealing with in the current outbreak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Loss of staff a challenge<\/strong><br \/>\nDr Togamana said loss of staff had added challenges to the already overwhelmed health system.<\/p>\n<p>More than 100 frontline workers in Solomon Islands have been infected with covid-19 and are isolating.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our only national referral hospital [Honiara] is now compromised. Many staff from the Ministry of Health also tested positive and continue to work from isolation,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Guadalcanal health teams have also reported six of its workers isolated at Good Samaritan &#8212; four have tested positive while the remaining two await the results.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dr Togamana said 24 Honiara City Council health workers had also tested positive with covid-19.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2022\/01\/28\/covid-19-three-more-deaths-in-solomons-as-outbreak-overwhelms-health-staff\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RNZ Pacific Three more people have died of covid-19 in Solomon Islands raising the national tally to five. Health authorities confirmed the country\u2019s first two deaths on Tuesday. During a media conference last night, Health Minister Dr Culwick Togamana said the government was expecting more cases in the coming days. READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,5672,304,5,365,387,12,403,1573,1716,368,887,41435],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487833"}],"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=487833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488217,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487833\/revisions\/488217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}