BY MAVIS N PODOKOLO
CONTACT tracing for secondary contacts of all negative cases will be conducted to further ensure there is no positive case in the communities, says Dr Culwick Togamana.
Togamana, minister for Health and Medical Services, echoed this in his special COVID-19 address on Monday night regarding the MV Papamau crew members.
“We will also be expanding the contact and tracing of the extended contacts to all secondary contacts to further make sure there is no positive in the community,” he said.
Togamana stressed it would have been a totally different scenario if any of the tests returns positive.
“It would mean lock down and will cause great catastrophe in the country.
“We will never know if we will lucky the next time, if such case happens again,” Togamana said.
He adds the threat of COVID-19 entering the country’s borders and slipping into communities remains very serious and real.
“We should not give it a chance to do so and we can only do this by getting COVID-19 vaccine doses to protect our country against COVID-19 virus,” Togamana said.
He said while the current policies and standard operating procedures in place to prevent entry and spread of COVID-19 will continue to evolve and strengthen with such experiences, the public are strongly urged go and get vaccinated at vaccination centres.
“We are also strengthening our procedures related to proper scrutiny and infection control packages as part of our into the risk situation,” Togamana said.
Meanwhile, first test results for all boarding parties which included Customs, Health, Immigration, Biosecurity, Ship agents and the SI ports boat Captain have come back negative.
