Results for Health

Tonga's Minister for Health, Hon Dr ‘Amelia Tu’ipulotu has been hospitalized and is recovering well, said Dr Siale ‘Akau’ola this morning. He did not explain the reason for her admission to Vaiola Hospital. Meanwhile, the first group pf 57 repatriated passengers who arrived from Fiji on July 11, completed their additional seven days of home quarantine with no symptoms recorded.

Even if one or more vaccines emerge that promise to make people less susceptible to COVID-19, the public-health problem will not be eliminated. But policymakers can avert some foreseeable problems by starting to address key questions about financing and distribution now. The toughest political question of all, though, is likely to concern access. Who should receive the initial doses of any vaccine? Who determines who is allowed into the queue and in what order? By Richard N. Haass

Governments cannot openly admit that the "controlled easing” of COVID-19 lockdowns in fact means controlled progress toward so-called herd immunity to the virus. Because there is currently no COVID-19 vaccine, governments have had to find other ways to prevent “excess deaths.” Most have opted for lockdowns, which remove entire populations from the path of the virus and thus deprive it of hosts. But this strategy has a terrible weakness: governments cannot keep their populations locked down until a vaccine arrives. Apart from anything else, the economic cost would be unthinkable. So, they have to ease the lockdown gradually. By Robert Skidelsky

Preparations get Tonga ready to combat CoViD-19 should it reach the kingdom, are progressing slowly. The Ministry of Health reported delays in the construction of a specialised CoVid-19 testing laboratory, and they are waiting more protective gowns and overalls, and an oxygen generator. The Ministry is still working on a quarantine policy for future incoming passengers.

An Australian doctor in Tonga warns that it’s too early for children to return to school tomorrow because we do not know for certain if the recent arrivals in Tonga were free of the virus or just had no symptoms. “If they did pass it to people they have contacted, those contacts may still be incubating the disease...To relax these restrictions now risks an outbreak of the disease, with potentially terrible consequences.” he said. There are no CoViD-19 tests here, so Tonga is “flying blind”.

It is likely that eventually, CoViD-19 will become endemic (commonly recurring in the community), and most of us will get infected, says Justin Lessler, an associate professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States, stressing that it is most important to slow the speed of transmission.

While no cases of coronavirus have been identified in Tonga, the country has raised its alert level from high to very high, in a fourth travel advisory issued today, aimed at preventing the virus from entering the country.

Health services for over half a million people in four Pacific countries, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, will benefit from a project that is helping to improve overall immunization coverage rates and support greater efficiency of primary health care.

Samoa is experiencing the deadliest epidemic to hit the South Pacific in the 21st century. The nation’s Government today confirmed 55 measles related deaths with at least 48 of the victims being being children under the age of four. A total of 3,881 measles cases have been recorded by Samoa’s Ministry of Health since the outbreak began in October.