Results for Health

Around the world, Hand Hygiene Day is celebrated today 5 May, but in Tonga students at GPS Fasi have stepped up their hand hygiene routine every day to prevent the spread of pathogens and infections such as CoViD-19.

Tonga’s Ministry of Health still has a number of issues to address before they would like the borders to open and to ease restrictions on gathering in public places, says Health CEO Dr Siale 'Akau'ola. “We have to make sure that no coronavirus will be transferred.”

A man who boarded an Air New Zealand flight at Fua’amotu International Airport yesterday, 23 April, was removed due to a New Zealand Immigration travel ban “technicality”, and ended up in quarantine at the Fua'amotu Taliai Camp instead, where he will have to stay for 14 days.

Personal Protective Equipment consisting of 50,000 KN95 facial masks and 20,000 protective masks donated by the Jack Ma Foundation arrived in Nadi, the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19, reported yesterday.

Tonga’s Ministry of Health trusts the World Health Organization’s (WHO) view that asymptomatic transmission of CoVID-19 has not been proven, CEO of the Ministry of Health Dr Siale 'Akau'ola said this week.

The first CoViD-19 PCR testing machine and one x-ray unit arrived in Tonga by container ship on Saturday, 11 April, along with 36 hospital beds donated by a Tongan family, the Ministry of Health confirmed this afternoon. However, the machine cannot be used until testing kits arrive.

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”.

The protection of all health care workers in the face of CoViD-19 has been highlighted as doctors, nurses, midwives and many others in the industry who work to keep communities healthy are recognized on World Health Day, 7 April.

Three CoViD-19 testing machines and 2000 test kits are expect to arrive in Tonga later this month, although it is still uncertain how they will get here. Meanwhile, the Health CEO warned against public scaremongering: "When people try to force authorities not to accept donations like PPEs to help us fight CoViD-19, it is like the public forcing someone to use a fork and spoon to fight a lion."