The Ministry of Health cannot determine the full impact of coronavirus on a person with severe comorbidity who test positive and die.[Source: WHO]

The Ministry of Health cannot determine the full impact of coronavirus on a person with severe comorbidity who test positive and die.

Permanent Secretary Doctor, James Fong says this is because many of these deaths are occurring at home or people are presenting very late to the hospitals.

“Trying to work out to what extent did COVID-19 cause the death and to what extent comorbidities causing the death is not easy. When you talk about expensive- we’re talking about the expense in terms of money and in terms of time taken to run one test.”

His comments come following the deaths of a four months-old-baby and a 15-year-old boy.

The infant from the Western Division was brought to a remote nursing station on January 13th in a severely weakened state.

Doctor Fong says he was medically assessed and stabilized by the attending medical staff and a COVID test was done which was noted to be positive.

The baby passed away before he could be transferred to Lautoka Hospital, despite the resuscitation efforts of the attending medical staff.

The Ministry has noted that records show the infant had been born with medical complications and was lost to follow-up.

This was a similar case with the 15-year-old male from the Central Division who had a significant pre-existing medical condition that contributed to the worsening of his COVID-19 complications.

The Ministry in its latest COVID-19 update has recorded 11 deaths of which five are from the Central Division.

A total of 78 people have died from COVID-19 so far this month alone.