Contact tracing continues as Samoa reports first community transmission

The Ministry of Health is continuing with contact tracing as Samoa moves through Alert 2 and 3.

At a press conference last night, Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa said the ministry will provide all necessary health measures to contain a potential rapid community transmission.

“Cabinet will assess the situation before the end of the nationwide lockdown and will advise the country accordingly,” she said while announcing the country’s first community transmission.

The case is a young woman who went for a routine test on Thursday as she had intended to travel overseas at the weekend.

She first developed minor symptoms last Saturday and went to church on Sunday according to a 1 News report.

The next day, after her condition worsened, she went to the hospital emergency department with vomiting and chills.

However, during the week she started to recover and went to the market, library, McDonald's, bible study and caught a number of buses.

Contact tracing will focus on all places of interest based on the woman’s movement and all possible contacts. 

Meanwhile 40 front line workers have been released from quarantine after testing negative to 3 consecutive Covid-19 tests.

PM Mata'afa confirmed their release, following 3 frontline workers from the same group contracting Covid-19 virus from passengers on a repatriation flight from New Zealand on 6 March.

Of the 200 passengers on the flight, 12 tested positive for Covid reports Tala Fou.

The three frontline workers that tested Covid positive are said to have been in close contact with the infected passengers.

All 15 confirmed cases remain in the isolation unit at the National Hospital at Motootua.