When Papua New Guinea registered its first Covid case in March 2020, the country held its breath.
There was acute concern about the country’s health system, which is already overwhelmed and under-utilized, which has about 500 doctors to serve a population of about nine million, and which is already struggling with measles, drug-resistant tuberculosis and polio outbreaks.
But for a long time, the Covid crisis did not last in PNG.
Now, a year later, as many countries hope to end the pandemic through vaccines, the predicted catastrophe experts have finally arrived in Papua New Guinea.
“This is what we all feared last year when the pandemic started,” said Dr. William Pomat, director of the Papua New Medical Research Institute.
Over the past month, the number of confirmed cases in Papua New Guinea has skyrocketed, from fewer than 900 cases and nine deaths in early February to 2,658 confirmed cases and 36 deaths in mid-March.
“We are seeing more people get very sick from Covid-19 this year compared to previous waves,” said Matt Cannon, St. John’s Commissioner.
Authorities fear that the magnitude of the outbreak is masked by low test numbers – with only 55,000 tests conducted nationwide during the pandemic – and that the actual number of infections could be many times higher.
‘Vulnerable health system’
Glen Mola, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Port Moresby General Hospital, in the country’s capital, wrote in the Guardian earlier this week that 30% of maternity ward staff had tested positive for Covid and feared they would. to do. inability to keep hospital doors open and women “could die in the hospital parking lot”.
“We have a very fragile health system and the stress is already palpable. We can collapse very quickly if we’re not careful… It’s a ticking time bomb, ”said Dr. Sam Yockopua, director of emergency medicine in Port Moresby.
Stigma surrounding the virus is still widespread in the Pacific country, and many refuse to be tested even if they show symptoms. Masks are only worn to enter buildings, but outside the bustling city, people still walk around without masks as conspiracy theories and claims of immunity grow.
In the public market in Port Moresby, people complain about wearing masks and say that Covid-19 cannot harm Papua New Guinea because of their skin color, a myth that emerged early in the pandemic as an explanation for the low infection rates of PNG.
‘Covid-19 does not affect us’
As Julie Osafa, 53, board a crowded bus from Port Moresby to Boroko, she ignored fears of the spread of Covid-19.
“PNG we are a Christian country, Covid-19 does not affect us. They just lie to us, ”she said.
Her friend Anna John, 46, added that the Covid-19 vaccine was the end of time and that the vaccination would mark Papua New Guinea with the sign of the devil.
“They made Covid-19 so they can vaccinate us and put the mark of the beast, Satan, on us,” she said.
Even the family of an 86-year-old man believed to have died of Covid-19 has called the virus a “government conspiracy.”
Australia has made every effort to help its nearest neighbor. It promises to deliver 8,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and is asking the European Union to divert one million doses of the vaccine for Australia to PNG. But many in Papua New Guinea still do not want to be vaccinated and are against the incarceration of “national isolation” starting next week. Schools are closing and travel is prohibited.
Such beliefs and conspiracy theories have prompted the country’s prime minister, James Marape, and other MPs to come forward and say that they will be the first to be vaccinated, offering it as “guinea pigs” earlier this week for the vaccine.
“For those who think Covid-19 is a joke, or are playing; this is a globally established pandemic, ” he warned.