Permanent Secretary for the Health Ministry Dr James Fong

The majority of Fijian nationals who went for medical treatment in India have been brought back home in the last repatriation flight.

Permanent Secretary for the Health Ministry Dr James Fong says at this stage they have not received word on whether any Fijians remain in India.

Dr Fong says the Ministry and other arms of government that have been focusing on ensuring Fiji remains COVID-19 contained, have gained a lot of experience and intelligence to refine protocols and measures.

With the 105 people in quarantine, Dr Fong says they’re maximizing protection for those who support the facilities.

“We went through this process of training everybody on how to make sure they don’t get too close to any of the quarantine cases. We ensured that there are adequate protocols too in terms of infection prevention control. I can only say I’ve gone down personally a number of time to those quarantine facilities to ensure that we maintain many of the precautions that we wanted to maintain.”

The PS adds that Fiji’s quarantine protocols over the past months prove that our systems can support the safe repatriation of Fijians.

He says this goes to show that Fiji does not turn its back on its own people.

Fiji currently has a total of eight active COVID quarantine cases.

The cases are returning citizens who boarded the repatriation flight from India on the 1st of this month.