Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary, Dr James Fong.

One of the four cases of COVID-19 announced yesterday is an extreme case as the patient’s health has been deteriorating.

Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary, Dr James Fong says the patient is Fiji’s 125th case involving a 53-year-old man who was admitted to the Lautoka hospital on April 19th.

Dr Fong says the man was admitted for a surgical procedure which was performed successfully.

He adds that the man developed some respiratory symptoms on April 28th.

“The patient’s condition began deteriorating. He was moved into the intensive care unit and swabbed for the virus and barely four hours ago had he tested positive for COVID-19.”

The Permanent Secretary says the timeline and the recent deterioration of the patient’s condition indicate that he is likely a late-stage carrier of the virus.

Dr Fong adds that the patient was seen by case 120, the 25-year-old Doctor on the 29th of April for a swab test.

The patient refused to be swabbed on two occasions.

The Doctor developed symptoms on May 1st and tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

The second local case is a 27-year-old woman from Narere.

“She entered quarantine on 28th April 2021 as a contact of one of the cases from Makoi. Further investigations revealed that, during a family gathering on April 17th, she also had close contact with another case from Makoi. That gathering is now potentially the source point of three cases.”

Dr Fong says despite it being a small family gathering with members from a few different households, it was more than enough to have national ramifications.

The other cases are border quarantine cases where two soldiers who recently returned from their tours of duty as peacekeepers in the Golan Heights tested positive for the virus as well.