Fiji has recorded a new COVID-19 border quarantine case, a 30-year-old male who arrived in the country on 18 February from the Philippines, bringing to 57 the country’s total number of coronavirus cases.
The Ministry of Health said the 30-year-old who travelled from Manila via Hong Kong, arrived in Nadi on flight FJ1394. He returned a weak positive result during routine testing while in quarantine in Nadi, shows no symptoms and had tested negative before departing for Fiji.
The individual has since been moved to the isolation ward at the Lautoka Hospital.
Based on the weak positive test result, and current lack of symptoms, he is considered a historical case, who was likely infected and recovered multiple weeks or months before entering Fiji. However, management of this case will follow our standard protocol for positive cases, the ministry said.
Another overseas returnee, a 58-year-old female also returned a positive test result during quarantine but is not considered a Fiji case having “confirmed as a COVID-19 case in Panama in December 2020. “
“She is also unlikely to be infectious, though as a precaution, she has also been isolated.”
Fiji has now had 57 cases in total, with one active case, 54 recoveries and two deaths, since the first case was reported on 19 March 2020. The last 39 cases have been international travel-associated cases detected in border quarantine. It has been 312 days since the last case was detected outside border quarantine on April 18, 2020. A total of 29,626 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 160 tests per day over the last seven days, and a weekly average of 1048 tests per week over the last two weeks.
