There are only a handful of places that have not reported cases of COVID-19. Many of them are in the Pacific. American Samoa, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna are still virus-free.
As early as January, the Pacific started to step up efforts to prepare for COVID-19, with support from WHO.
Cases started to be reported from mid-March in Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands and Papua New Guinea.
None of the countries and areas in the Pacific is complacent.
Tokelau
Training on Infection Prevention in Tokelau, March 16, 2020
Dr Durgavasini Devanath, of WHO, travelled 30 hours on a boat from Samoa to Tokelau to help plan and prepare for COVID-19.
“Tokelau is a communal society, so everyone is stepping up to protect the community. People were committed in the training and the whole community took efficient action. For example, we received updates and pictures from an atoll we just left a day earlier on how they were refurbishing quarantine and isolation facilities.”
Cook Islands
Training in Cook Islands, March 3, 2020
The WHO Health Systems team leader in the Pacific, Dr Akeem Ali, was re-assigned to support the government’s COVID-19 preparedness plan. In early March, in response to the government’s request to train healthcare staff on infection prevention and control and case management for COVID-19, Dr Akeem headed to the Cook Islands.
“Working in health systems means that WHO can tailor our help so that we build a COVID-19 plan that is focused on the local reality, the priority needs, what will make a response successful and also consider some of the issues the country will have to deal with in the medium term.”
Niue
Handwashing training for school kids, March 10, 2020
“I think I have met most of the 1600 people living in Niue and trained half of them on the correct way of hand-washing,” says Min Tanuvasa Lene, a registered nurse and health advisor working with WHO in Niue and Samoa.
“There was an incredible sense of unity, support, urgency and commitment from the Ministry of Health and the community to engage with WHO to help them prepare and navigate the threat of COVID-19. The healthcare workers trust WHO as the credible source of information and support. l. It also made it easier to continue to support them remotely now that we are limited with our travel options.”
Samoa
PPEs arriving in Samoa’s Health Emergency Operation Centre, April 1, 2020
With Samoa on the cusp of declaring the end of its measles outbreak, the government immediately started to inform the public on how to effectively stop the spread of COVID-19. Personal protective equipment (PPE) consisting of gloves, N95 respirators, surgical masks, goggles and thermometers was sent to Samoa and many other countries by the Joint Incident Management Team (JIMT), to ensure frontline staff could safely manage up to 100 COVID-19 cases.
Fiji
New testing kits arriving in Fiji CDC. May 10, 2020
For Fiji, COVID-19 preparedness also started early. By mid-March, Fiji’s molecular laboratory at the Fiji Centre for Disease Control had validated testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, enabling the country to test suspected cases rather than sending their specimens overseas. In early May, the newly developed testing equipment started to arrive in the Pacific, increasing the number of tests and allowing other Pacific countries to test for COVID-19 locally for the first time.
WHO supported the Fiji government to be ready to respond to the first cases, with an epidemiologist in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services. and deliveries of sterilisation and respiratory equipment.
French Polynesia
WHO expert Sean Casey briefing the President and Ministers of French Polynesia at the Presidential Palace, March 20, 2020
WHO sent technical staff to set up French Polynesia’s national Health Emergency Operations Centre, and an Incident Management Team was officially launched in late March by the President WHO also trained essential workers. For example, pilots and aircrew were trained on the safe evacuation of COVID-19 patients.
Working in partnership — the Pacific JIMT
“From very early on, we recognized that we could be facing an unprecedented crisis and we could only succeed by coming together as partners in an unprecedented way,” says Dr Corinne Capuano, WHO Director of Pacific Support. “We are very grateful to have made that decision and started to work alongside our partners, sat down together to build up better relations and structures back then. Now that many of us are working remotely, we are well prepared and are still able to work effectively.”
UN country team meeting in Fiji, reviewing COVID-19 situation, March 12, 2020.
The JIMT was established in January 2020 and has grown to include 20 agencies across the Pacific working together as the Health Cluster of the Pacific Humanitarian Team, supporting Pacific health systems.
Led by WHO, the JIMT includes: International Organization for Migration (IOM), Office of the UN Resident Coordinator (RCO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), Pacific Community (SPC), Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), Pacific Islands Health Officers’ Association (PIHOA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US Embassy in Suva and the World Bank.
Providing supplies
Despite global shortages of critical laboratory and medical supplies and challenges to supply chains, by May WHO had been able to support the procurement and distribution of more than 330,000 items across 17 Pacific island countries and areas.
Read the full story on Medium https://medium.com/@who/defending-the-pacific-7dd8dcd81d41