3 March 2022
Solomon Islands now has over 7000 Covid cases
There are over 7,250 official cases of Covid-19 in Solomon Islands since January, with the death toll at 106.
Meanwhile, a Solomon Islands MP wants to know how a logging vessel carrying a man with Covid-19 was permitted to travel to a camp in his West Are'Are constituency.
John Maneniaru said the man was seriously ill with Covid symptoms.
He wants the Parliament's Oversight Committee to say whether the crew had fulfilled the Covid-19 travel protocols prior to departure.
Mr Maneniaru also wants an explanation as to whether the crew had been given an exemption to travel.
The MP said he understands only cargo and crew should travel to other parts of the country, from Honiara, under the current Covid rules.
Source – Radio New Zealand.
222 Public Officers Unvaccinated, 54 Self-Terminated
A total of 222 Public Officers have decided not to be vaccinated, of that 54 are now self-terminated under the Government’s No Jab No Job policy.
The first 54 self-terminated public officers have been verified and confirmed by their respective human resource managers following the 31 January 2022 deadline.
Public Service and respective Ministries are undergoing verification for the remaining 168 employees.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Service (MPS) Nego Sisiolo confirmed this situation to the Oversight Committee.
Mr. Sisiolo said arriving at this decision was a very long and carefully calculated process.
The MPS had advised Public Officers in a circular on 6 August 2021 of the “No Jab No Job” policy outlining the rationale behind the policy and the consequences of failing to adhere to the policy.
A second circular reminding officers was issued on 22 September 2021 which provided a grace period to give time for officers to get their vaccines.
The circular further warned officers of the deadline and the consequences is self-termination.
Mr.Sisiolo said an advisory will be sent to the Ministry of Finance and Treasury following the verification process to cease the salaries of the remaining 168 officers who are not vaccinated.
He explained, a number of public officers, because of health or other reasons are given extensions.
Source: GCU
Additional Health and Medical Supplies Boost COVID-19 Response in Provinces
With the ongoing surge in community transmission of Covid-19 into the provinces, the Health and Medical Services Ministry is deploying additional supplies and workers to boost responses in the provinces.
So far, a total of 39,780 Rapid Antigen Test kits were sent to the provinces as part of the current testing strategy to immediately detect Covid-19 cases for necessary and relevant interventions.
Furthermore, PPEs including a total of 457,600 face masks and 35,430 N95 masks, 1,110 eye goggles, 750,500 hand gloves and 38,797 surgical gowns have been deployed to enable health workers safely discharge their duties and prevent the spread of the virus between them and patients.
“The PPEs have played a critical role in ensuring safe births of new born babies in areas where Covid-19 community transmission is occurring while health is working hard to ensure these supplies reach the various levels of health facilities in all provinces,” said Health and Medical Services Minister, Dr Culwick Togamana.
Apart from supplies, the Ministry also deployed technical support from Honiara to support provincial response to Covid-19.
A team comprising 2 doctors and three nurses were deployed to Seghe in Marovo Lagoon this week while a senior physician was deployed to Malu’u in Malaita to attend to a Covid-19 critical patient on oxygen and another team of 5 health workers, doctors and nurses will be deployed this week to assist with the management of Covid-19 patients at Kilu’ufi hospital and Atoifi Area Health Centre.
Furthermore, a team comprising 2 doctors and 9 nurses from Malaita and Honiara have been prepared for deployment to the Malaita Outer Islands this week for clinical and outpatient support services including vaccination roll out.
Source: GCU
Covid-19 admissions at NRH reduced
Twenty eight Covid-19 positive cases are currently admitted at the National Referral Hospital.
The Minister of Health and Medical Services Dr Culwick Togamana said of the 28 cases, 23 are in the National Referral Hospital Golden Ward – the ward set aside for critical and severe Covid-19 patients – the remaining five cases are admitted at the isolation spaces at the Surgical and Orthopaedic Wards.
“In terms of severity, one case is considered to be in critical condition requiring oxygen.
“Twenty patients are in severe conditions and the rest are moderate and mild admissions,” Dr Togamana said.
He added that no new Covid-19 admissions were made in the 24 hours to midday yesterday (Monday 28th February).
The Minister said the National Referral Hospital is also making significant progress to open other essential services.
“Our hospital is making significant progress in small steps taken to open other essential services mainly for diabetic and cancer patients as well as surgical operations and others,” the Minister said.
He urged the public to call the National Referral Hospital Emergency Operations Centre if they need to use or learn more about these essential services.
The telephone number to call is 21068.
The Minister was speaking during his daily update on the Covid-19 situation in the country last night.
Booster restores vaccine protection lost against omicron
Two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna Covid-19 vaccines provide minimal protection against symptomatic illness caused by the omicron variant, though a booster shot was able to restore protection, new research finds.
The study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against symptomatic disease plummeted to about 8 percent from about 65 percent six months after the second dose of the primary vaccination series.
The effectiveness of the first two doses of the Moderna vaccine saw a similar reduction, falling to about 15 percent from about 71 percent over the same time period.
A booster shot of either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine increased the protection back to levels seen after two doses, before starting to wane again after about two months, according to the researchers.
The study, funded by the U.K. Health Security Agency, adds to growing evidence that two doses of the existing Covid vaccines appear to offer little protection against mild illness from the omicron variant, although experts note that the shots still provide strong protection against severe disease and death.
The findings underscore the importance of the booster shot, the study authors wrote, adding that third doses provide a “rapid and substantial” increase in protection against both mild and severe illness.
In the United States, just under 50 percent of those eligible for a booster have received it, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The research confirms that omicron “is significantly more likely to cause symptomatic breakthrough infections compared to delta,” said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Weill Cornell Medical College. He was not involved in the study.
But what’s more important, he added, is that protection against hospitalization and death is much more strongly preserved.
And those who have received three doses “still have pretty substantial protection” against symptomatic illness, Moore said.
The study, which was conducted from Nov. 27 to Jan. 12, when the omicron variant began circulating widely in the United Kingdom, looked at more than 1 million people infected with either the omicron or the delta variant. It only looked at whether people developed mild illness, and not severe outcomes such as hospitalizations.
People were vaccinated and boosted with vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca.
People who received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine also saw a waning in protection against infection after several months, as well as after receiving a booster, according to the study.
Other studies have also found that the vaccines may be inadequate for preventing omicron infections, though people who’ve received three doses appear to have the highest protection.
Additionally, studies show, two doses of a vaccine should still provide high protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death.
A separate study, published by the CDC on Tuesday, found that while two doses of the Pfizer vaccine did not protect kids 5 and older as well from an omicron infection, the shots did keep most of them out of the hospital.
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said that going forward, people may have to accept that immunity provided by a previous infection or vaccination may not be very good at protecting against mild illness.
“We have labeled this virus as one in which there is zero tolerance for spread and zero tolerance for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infection,” said Offit, who was also not involved with the new research. “Until we can accept the fact that people are going to be walking around mildly symptomatic, even though they’ve been vaccinated, we are not going to move into an endemic stage.”
Source. NBC health.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
