Permanent Secretary, Doctor James Fong, Chief Medical Advisor Dr Jemesa Tudravu and Head of Health Protection Dr Aalisha Sahukhan.[Source: Fijian Government]

The self-isolation period for three of the senior medical personnel has been extended.

Permanent Secretary, Doctor James Fong, Head of Health Protection, Dr Aalisha Sahukhan, and Chief Medical Advisor, Dr Jemesa Tudravu, are now being considered as contacts of a positive case.

Dr James Fong says this is a preventative measure as their contact history is quite low in terms of the risk.

“We are basing it from the time our contact has become symptomatic, we are well outside the time of infectiousness. We felt that out of an abundance of caution we will continue our quarantine according to our protocols of the primary contact.”

He adds they all got swabbed yesterday and some of them have tested negative.

The Permanent Secretary says anybody who could be identified as their secondary contacts need not worry as two of their tests have come out negative.

They entered self-isolation on Friday after three staff from the Ministry of Health who were part of the operations in the COVID-19 Incident Management Team tested positive.