Queensland has ‘major concerns’ about COVID spread from PNG

Queensland’s Premier urged the federal government to consider vaccinating Papua New Guinea residents as she revealed “major concerns” the virus could spread into her state.

On Monday, Ms Palaszczuk said Queensland Health tested 500 swabs taken from PNG residents and 250 of those came back positive.

Queensland Premier Annastaica Palaszczuk has “major concerns” about COVID-19 spreading from PNG.Credit: Jono Searle/Getty

“We have major concerns now about what is happening in Papua New Guinea,” she said.

“I hope that I will be able to speak with Prime Minister [Scott Morrison] or the Prime Minister’s office in the next 24 hours just to talk about our concerns there, have a look at the flights coming in,” she said.

“I understand that they are providing some assistance into Papua New Guinea, but maybe we need to look at a vaccine rollout program there as well.

“It is right on our doorstep and it is a real risk, and as you know that is why we are getting the Torres Strait Islanders vaccinated as quickly as possible.”

The AstraZeneca vaccine was fast-tracked to islands in the Torres Strait last week as fears of an outbreak from PNG grew.

An internal emergency was declared at Cairns Hospital last week after an influx of COVID-19 cases from PNG.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said COVID-19 patients were now being transferred from Cairns to Brisbane “as a matter of course”.

“We had six positive cases today, two of them were from PNG so you can see every week now, we are getting positive cases from PNG,” she said.

Ms D’Ath said Queensland Health was helping the Pacific nation process its COVID-19 tests.

“As the Premier said, 500 tests and 250 positive, so one-in-two people: that is quite extraordinary and concerning when they are right on our doorstep.”

Ms D’Ath said vaccinations on Saibai Island were due to begin on Monday.

Saibai is the closest populated island in the Torres Strait to PNG, just four kilometres from that nation’s mainland.

On Sunday, Mr Morrison pledged to help deliver 1 billion vaccine doses to countries in the Asia-Pacific region after the first leaders’ summit of the “Quad” countries.

The Quad - a strategic alliance between the US, Australia, India and Japan - would distribute vaccines to developing nations in the region to counter China’s vaccine diplomacy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian last month tweeted that China had “decided to assist PNG with a batch of vaccines to help PNG defeat the epidemic completely”.