The governor of Papua New Guinea's East New Britain province says police will enforce lockdown measures in several wards where a confirmed covid-19 case has been present.
PNG confirmed its second case on Monday, a 40 year-old female from the province who developed a cough 16 days ago and was later admitted to the hospital.
Governor Nakikus Konga said the woman since left hospital, feeling normal, but is in isolation.
The whole province has been placed in lockdown in an attempt to curb community transmission.
Mr Konga said the lockdown will be strictly enforced in the six wards of Kokopo where the woman had been circulating.
"So we are now containing that particular area where she came from. And thy'll be in lockdown for fourteen days. The police will be moving around. Everyone stays there."
"We're confiing these people so they don't move around. There's a total of about fifteen thousand people in those four, five or six wards."
Mr Konga said his province needs help from the national government which he conceded was itself already short of money and under-resourced.
"We need more testing equipment to test the people. I just spoke to the Minister for Health and said you know I need about four-thousand testing kits, so we can frustate this thing here.
"Because the more we leave it, the more it can continue to spread. But then they (the national government) don't have much. We only receive about five hundred, which we have used up already."
While a number of people are being monitored for covid-19, the governor said confirmation of the woman's case still came as a surprise.
Health authorities are expected to conduct contact tracing in relation to the case.
Mr Konga said it was unclear how the woman became infected.
He said the woman had been to Port Moresby recently, but that she reportedly also had contact with a group from Australia visited Kokopo three weeks ago.
Mr Konga also said his province needs logistical help to stop covid-19 spreading.
He said they need help from the national government which he recognises is already short of money and under-resourced.
"We need more testing equipment to test the people. I just spoke to the Minister for health and said you know I need about four-thousand testing kits, so we can frustate this thing here."
"Because the more we leave it, the more it can continue to spread. But then they (the national government) don't have much. We only receive about five hundred, which we have used up already."
