COVID-19

WHO again reminds people to practice good habits

May 20, 2021 12:55 pm

RFMF personnel and Ministry of Health & Medical Services - Fiji staff continue with COVID-19 taskings at the Korovou-Dawasamu area earlier this week. [Source: RFMF/Twitter]

The World Health Organization is once again reiterating the call of our experts, as we strive to fight off the growing COVID-19 cases in the country.

As of last night, Fiji has 57 active cases, and the Health Ministry continues to warn people of the dangers of not adhering to protocols in place.

Fiji has put in place measures including that for essential businesses who want to operate, as our testing and swabbing continues daily.

Article continues after advertisement

WHO’s Doctor Maria Van Kerkhove, says people need to practice things such as physical distancing, avoid crowded spaces, and having good ventilation systems along with wearing masks.

“It means that we need to do everything that we can to prevent infections and reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, whether it’s a virus variant, a variant of interest or a variant of concern or not, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect us and it can spread between people. So, it means to take all of the measures that you can to reduce your exposure in the possibility of you getting infected.”

While WHO and our Health Ministry continue to warn us about taking precautions, the experts say the different variants should not be identified as a country variant.

The variant we are facing now was first found in India late last year but Doctor Van Kerkhove warns people not to stigmatize any country.

“So, you’ll notice when I said a variant of concern, I named it by a number, for example, B.1.617, and I didn’t call it a country name variant. It’s really important that we don’t do that. We don’t say country X variant, because that really adds a stigma associated with these variants. And it’s important that surveillance is occurring around the world and we detect these variants very quickly and the information is shared so that it can be analyzed so that we understand the potential implications once they are identified.”

WHO says currently there are four variants of concern around the world.

These B.1.1.7, which was first identified in the United Kingdom, the B.1.351, which was first identified in South Africa, the P.1 variant which was first identified in Japan from travelers from Brazil and the B.1.617, which was first identified in India and affecting Fiji.