COVID-19 Update – 26-02-2021

Media Release                                                                   

COVID-19 Update

26th February 2021

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services is announcing 2 new border quarantine cases of COVID-19.

The first is a 22-year-old male who traveled to Fiji from Durban, South Africa, arriving in Nadi on FJ1410 from Auckland.

He returned a positive result during routine quarantine testing while undergoing mandatory 14-day quarantine in a Government designated border quarantine facility in Nadi.

He currently has no symptoms, and further investigations are underway to determine whether this is a historical case of COVID-19.

The second case is a 66-year-old female who traveled from Sacramento, United States of America. She also returned a weak positive result during routine quarantine testing while undergoing mandatory 14-day quarantine in a Government designated border quarantine facility in Nadi.

A weak positive indicates that a very small amount of viral material was detected in the sample, which was likely a non-viable virus.

She currently has no symptoms and is considered a historical case that was likely infected, and recovered, sometime before arriving in Fiji.

Both individuals were transferred to the isolation ward at the Lautoka hospital in accordance with the standard protocol for COVID-19 cases. The frontline border quarantine staff that may have had any contact with the cases will be monitored and tested as a precaution according to our protocols.

Fiji has now had 59 cases in total, with 3 active cases, 54 recoveries, and 2 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19, 2020.

The last 41 cases have been international travel-associated cases detected in border quarantine. It has been 314 days since the last case was detected outside border quarantine on April 18, 2020.

A total of 30,118 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 198 tests per day over the last 7 days, and a weekly average of 1048 tests per week over the last 2 weeks.

The next scheduled update will be on Monday 1 March.

-ENDS-