Two crew members of the cargo ship MV Island Chief that arrived in Fiji on 2 December 2020 have tested “weak positive” for COVID-19 and are in isolation at the Navua Hospital. Before arriving in Fiji, the vessel's last port of call was Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on November 30.

The Fiji Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong said in a press conference [2] today that the remaining crew members will stay on the vessel and will be in quarantine waters overseen by Fiji security personnel.

He said the Fiji COVID response unit was activated and they were announcing “two potential cases of COVID-19 at our border”.

However, “We are not yet counting them as official border cases for Fiji yet, as we are awaiting information as to whether these individuals had been tested positive in another country in the past.

“These cases are a bit different to the usual,” he said, explaining that “they might be historical cases without live virus. Both crew have no symptoms.”

All Fijian officials who boarded the MV Island Chief have been identified and entered into quarantine facilities. Doctor Fong said they identified 21 close contacts of the officials that interacted with the vessel and they are placed in quarantine.

Tonga

Meanwhile, Tonga's Ministry of Health CEO Dr Siale 'Akau'ola, told Matangi Tonga tonight that crews on any ship coming into Tonga after an overseas voyage, are not allowed to disembark while the ship is at the wharf.

He confirmed that the MV Island Chief had arrived at Tonga on 30 November 2020 and left on same day.

“None of the ship's crew disembarked,” he said.

“Personally, I am confident of the procedures practised by our team at our international wharf at Queen Salote Wharf. It ensures there is never any close contact between a ship's crew and our local staff. Even if a local staff need to board a ship, such a staff is in full PPE and will not be in close contact with a ship's crew at any time.”

Dr 'Akau'ola said that infection protection protocols are strictly observed in Tonga's ports.

“In other words, we always treat every foreign ship's crew member as a potential positive COVID-19 case. Even though, a positive case is a rare thing. Our very strict and highly cautious procedures should protect us from these two ‘weak positive’ cases”

“Fiji MOH has not officially contacted us to raise any concerns of possible risk to Tonga. Personally, I don't think there is any risk to Tonga from this event. But our public health team will follow this up very closely,” Dr 'Akau'ola said.

New Zealand

In the Fiji media briefing today, Dr Fong said that the MV Island Chief had arrived in Tonga from New Zealand where it had been stationed from 16-25 November. During the time in New Zealand, the vessel underwent a crew change where individuals were typically flown in from other countries to replace the existing crew. He said their current information was that all crew underwent the full 14-day quarantine and they tested negative for the virus in New Zealand before the vessel departed.

The vessel had arrived at Lautoka port (Fiji) to deliver cargo on 2 Dec., then it proceeded on to Suva port. None of the crew members had disembarked from the vessel in Lautoka and Suva.

It was scheduled to depart to Samoa and prior to departure, the 12 crew members needed to be tested again for COVID-19 in accordance with Samoan entry requirements. As a result of this testing, two crew members of the MV Island Chief had tested positive for COVID-19. The first crewman tested positive twice, on Dec. 4 and Dec. 6; the second was negative on Dec. 4 and positive on Dec. 6.

Dr Fong explained that the positive results are both what may be called in their language "weak positive " indicating that a very small amount of viral material was present in the sample.


“The international evidence around COVID-19 molecular testing indicates these are not likely to be live virus. Based on these results and the fact that both crew have no symptoms the indication is that they are at the end of an illness process and they are what we call historical cases.”

Test results indicate that these two cases may not have been infectious, and further tests are being done to confirm this. However “acting out of an abundance of caution” all Fijian officials who were in contact witht the vessel were placed into quarantine.


“We need to be COVID ready, which means the community needs to take responsibility for all the COVID-safe  measures we are asking them to do, so that if COVID breaks our borders it stops there.”

He urged Fijians to download a contact tracing app so they would be COVID ready.