By Staff Writer
The Solomon Islands have a confirmed COVID-19 case of a student repatriated from the Philippines last week.
The country’s Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, confirmed last Saturday the student tested positive after routine tests upon arrival in Honiara.
Sogavare confirmed that the student tested negative in the Philippines prior to his departure.
The student is asymptomatic, meaning he does not show or have symptoms of COVID-19.
The Prime Minister said he is confident that this case will be managed and contained.
The country’s Ministry of Health is now in the process of contact tracing and people are being tested. Results will be released soon to relevant authorities.
Contact tracing for COVID-19 requires identifying people who may have been exposed to COVID-19 and following them up daily for 14 days from the last point of exposure.
The student was among over 400 Solomon Islands nationals stranded in the Philippines after borders were closed.
The Solomon Islands government has scheduled three repatriation flights to bring those people home, the last of which would be carried out at the end of the month as planned.
“My government is well aware of the risks involved in repatriating our students from the Philippines,” PM Sogavare was quoted by overseas news media.
“ We are also aware that keeping our children in the Philippines exposes them to even higher risks.
“As a responsible government, we cannot close our eyes to the plight of our children and bringing them home was the humane thing to do,” he said.
There were 18 Solomon students who had tested positive for the coronavirus before boarding their flights in the Philippines.
Solomon Is. was one of 12 countries in the world still free from COVID-19 including Samoa.
North Korea and Turkmenistan are the only countries outside the Pacific Islands region free of the pandemic.
Samoa and 9 other neighbouring islands are COVID-19 free. Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are the others.
As of the start of this week, 35 million cases of CVOID-19 have been recorded with just over one million deaths.
The United States is the worst country affected with 7.3 million cases coronavirus pandemic with India a close second at 6.5 million cases.
