Solomon Islands faces a high risk when it comes to Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China.
That’s according to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Medical Services Pauline McNeil when speaking at a press conference on Wednesday in Honiara.
McNeil told local reporters that the virus has spread to other countries globally and now Solomon Islands also has a high risk of getting the virus if necessary precaution measures is not undertaken.
“At the global level as of 4th February, we have 20,630 confirm cases and of that 21,471 are within China and outside of China is about 159 cases,” she said.
McNeil said in terms of the risk level, there is a high risk both in global and in the regional level.
“With the risk level assessment, China risk assessment stands at a very high risk as in global and as well as the regional level,” she said.
She said the ministry together with its development partners and other side line ministries are taking all the necessary actions to try and prevent the virus from entering the country.
“In terms of the efforts the ministry has taken with regards to its preparedness and our reckon strategy, we have draft preparedness and a response plan in place that has been recently updated this morning and been shared with our partner ministries for their input,” she said.
McNeil said their inputs and contributions’ to the plan is very important so that they know what are the efforts the other line ministries are taking in terms of their preparedness and response strategy.
She said the strategy plan is within the overall structure of the national disaster management and so we are aligned to the national framework and structure.
“In terms of our coordination and leadership, we have activated the NDOC committee for health and with all our multi sectoral coordination with our key partners and NDMO is part of that with our other development partners in the health sector.
“We have also activated our emergency operation sector which is based at the National referral Hospital to coordinate all preparedness and response activities within the NRH as well as the MHMS,” she said.
By IAN M.KAUKUI
