Fiji

It said the latest confirmed cases are a 12 year-old from Sakoca in Tacirua who is linked to a previous case in the same area, and a 39 year-old from Nasole in Nasinu who was admitted to hospital and later discharged home.

The 3 month-old baby, reported in previous updates, is still in hospital. All other confirmed cases have recovered or are recovering well under home isolation.

The national measles immunisation campaign was temporarily suspended on December 27th 2019 due to Tropical Cyclone Sarai and will restart in all divisions next week.

Fiji's government introduced plans to phase out plastic bags in January this year and the country joins the growing list of Pacific nations to do so.

Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Niue, Samoa and New Zealand's bans are already in effect while the Pacific's most populous nation, Papua New Guinea, joins them at the end of next month.

In August 2017, Fiji introduced a 10 cent plastic bag levy to reduce plastic bag usage, and a year later the use of plastic bags had halved.

The storm battered large areas of Fiji for three days but overnight the system moved on.

It is now over Tonga, though it has weakened considerably.

The Centre reports teams would be sent to the affected communities on Wednesday to fully assess Sarai's impact.

It said it had reports of damage to houses across all four divisions, with some homes completely demolished by the cyclone.

The Centre also said farms, as well as health and education facilities had also been damaged.

 The Category 2 storm battered Fiji's southern Lau group last night - winds of up to 170 km/hr.

Two people have died during Sarai in Fiji, where the body of a man was found after he went missing in a river during the storm, and another drowned while swimming.

A third person has been hospitalised after being hit by a falling tree.

More than 2000 people remain in the 54 evacuation centres.

Many people across parts of the Central, Western and Northern Divisions have been without power supply since Friday night.

The Fiji Meteorology Service said Tropical Cyclone Sarai is moving south at 35 km/hr.

The cyclone is expected to have average winds of up to to 65 km/hr with gusts of 90 km/hr.

The Fiji Met Service said heavy rain may lead to flash flooding.

The Tropical Depression is moving at 10 kilometres per hour, according to the Fiji Meteorology Service.

The Director of Meteorology, Misaeli Funaki told Fiji Village said this system will move southwards and come close to Fiji and when it forms into a cyclone, it will be named Cyclone Sarai.

He said while the majority of the models are projecting for the system to move just to the west of Yasawa and Mamanuca Groups, some other models are showing that the Cyclone could come over Viti Levu later on Friday.

The child is reported to be in a stable condition at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.

The Health Ministry says the outbreak response teams are conducting investigations in the respective locations with quarantine and vaccination of contacts and at risk communities as appropriate.

Twelve cases are from the Serua/Namosi Subdivision in Wailali, Wainadoi, Navunikabi and Makosoi in Deuba.

Four cases are from Suva Subdivision in Samabula, Vatuwaqa, Tacirua and Wailekutu.

Fiji has a much higher vaccination rate than Samoa, with only 15 confirmed cases in the country as of Tuesday, but health officials have warned people to avoid affected areas and cancel events likely to draw crowds.

"The gathering of youth and people for sporting events is not right and we should discourage it," said Peter Mazey, the chairman of the Fiji National Sports Commission.

"Working with the health ministry, we are going to try to stop it, now that we have 15 cases in the country."

There are now 15 confirmed cases in Fiji with the latest patient a 38-year-old from Nakelo, which is 28km from the capital of Suva.

The Health Ministry's Sunil Chandra said phase one of the campaign saw close to 100,000 people vaccinated.

That included more than 20,000 people in the outbreak area of Serua/Namosi, he said.

The awards were planned for this Thursday at the Laucala Campus's Japan-Pacific ICT Lecture Theatre.

The university said the cancellation was due to advice from the Ministry of Health against against mass public gatherings.

The University of Fiji earlier postponed its graduation ceremony in Suva next month because of the measles outbreak.

The ceremony will now be held in March 2020.

Meanwhile, the ministry has now confirmed 15 cases of measles.