The first Corona infection in the Vanuatu archipelago

Wellington: This Tuesday, the health authorities of Vanuatu announced the registration of the first confirmed infection with the new Corona virus in this archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, which to this day is one of the rare countries in the world free of Covid-19.

The Health Ministry said a 23-year-old who recently returned from the United States tested positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine.

And he added in a statement that he classified this infection as an import, not a local one, explaining that he had developed health protocols to contain the spread of the virus.

The statement noted that within the framework of the precautionary measures taken to combat the pandemic, this traveler, who came from a country classified as highly endemic and classified, was isolated from the rest of the travelers during the trip that returned him to the archipelago.

The statement highlighted that the injured person, from the moment he arrived in the country, respected all social distancing measures, indicating that the authorities are investigating the people with whom he had contact.

Vanuatu, which closed its borders in March to prevent the epidemic from reaching it, has only recently allowed its citizens stranded abroad to return home, in accordance with strict health measures.

This very costly measure at the economic level was adopted by a large number of Pacific countries because they did not find a solution for it in light of their fragile health systems.

Thanks to this measure, Kiribati, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu remain apparently immune to the virus.

At the end of October, the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands registered the first cases of Covid-19, but they were imported infections, and to date they have managed to contain them and prevent the transmission of the infection to the population.