Nearly two dozen crew members aboard an Australian Navy ship headed to provide aid to the Pacific island of Tonga have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, potentially hampering relief efforts to the Covid-free nation.
Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said 23 crew members of the HMAS Adelaide had been infected, in an interview on Sky News on Tuesday. The ship left Brisbane on Friday with a crew of 600 and humanitarian and medical supplies to help Tonga following a volcanic eruption.
At least three people were killed when the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted this month, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific and covering the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa with a blanket of ash.
Dutton said the Australian government was working with Tongan authorities to ensure that aid could continue to be delivered safely without transmitting Covid to anyone on the island. Since the start of the pandemic, Tonga has recorded only a single case of Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization.
“They obviously need the help desperately, but they don’t want the risk of Covid,” Dutton said, adding that some aid had already been delivered to Tonga via Australian C-17 flights to the island.
Separately, a member of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force who had been deployed to deliver aid to Tonga tested positive for the coronavirus, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told a briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday. The person was tested in Australia after developing a fever Monday morning and is in stable condition in isolation there.
Japanese airmen had been on the ground at Fua’amotu International Airport in Tonga on Jan. 22, delivering drinking water and cleaning equipment. Kishi said that sufficient personnel are available and that Japan’s mission will not be affected.
COVID blockade in the Pacific
The outbreak aboard HMAS Adelaide comes at a time when several Pacific nations are struggling to eliminate Covid-19 in their communities, with both Kiribati and Samoa recently announcing closures.
Both countries recorded fewer than 100 cases combined since the start of the pandemic, according to the World Health Organization, but are now seeing a steady rise in infections. Samoa extended its closure until Thursday for its population of more than 200,000, with reduced opening hours for supermarkets, banks and pharmacies.
At the same time, vaccination rates in many Pacific nations have lagged behind the rest of the region. While both Australia and New Zealand have given more than 75% of their populations two doses of Covid-19 vaccine, that rate has stagnated at just over 60% in Samoa and Tonga.
In Kiribati, less than 40% of the population has received two doses, let alone boosters, to protect against the highly infectious omicron variant.
