Covid19 & Vanuatu 22.03.20
- Jo Kafer
- Mar 22, 2020
- 6 min read
There were no confirmed cases in Vanuatu as of March 19th. On March 20th it was announced that a man who just arrived from France, had symptoms and was tested for the Coronavirus. An update just received today, 22.3.20, states that the result was negative.
Most international tourists transit through Port Vila on the island of Efate.
Cruise ships, forbidden entry to other South Pacific countries in January and February were invited to come to Vanuatu. And they did. The cruise ships have since ceased voyaging, a sensible decision made by companies such as P&O.
Meantime, large groups of ni-Vanuatu seasonal workers have returned from New Zealand and Australia and expats have been travelling back and forth between countries.
Citizens and residents of Vanuatu who are flying back are now being quarantined for two weeks at the Holiday Inn in Vila. The border is closed to other visitors.
Social distancing, there’s a new phrase now on the tip of our tongues which leaves a clinical and sinister taste. Social distancing will be very difficult to implement in this country, particularly in Efate.
Villages are highly social communities; that’s the point of villages. People live close together, many people sleeping under the same roof with a much higher density than apartment living. You work together, share food and travel to town packed closely inside a bus or on the back of a truck. There’s church and school. In Ekipe, Mondays are set aside for community work. The chief allocates tasks such as digging holes, cutting wood or gathering coral and sand from the coast which is used for concreting jobs like the construction of a new water tank stand or a kitchen at the nakamal (chief’s meeting place). The bell, an old diver’s tank, begins tolling early in the morning to summon people to the task at hand. Most dig or build or chop or carry, others prepare lunch. People work together to get things done.
Men greet each other by shaking hands. Women kiss both cheeks of the other lady. This is polite, everyday social interaction and you might do it twenty times a day or more. I find it hard not to automatically reach for a hand or a cheek and I’m a recent resident, I haven’t been doing this my whole life. In Australia, we do shake hands but not regularly, perhaps if we are being formally introduced. Normally we just say hello as we greet friends, family and workmates. Perhaps ni-Van will learn to do the same. I’m sorry that it has to change. There’s nothing like being enfolded in a warm, coconut fragranced embrace.
Public education, some of it dubious, has been provided regarding coughs and sneezes. Text messages from the health department advised people to cough into their hands! Another recommendation was to wash hands with soap and water after shaking hands. Water? Soap? Where? I’ve not seen the smallest sliver of soap at our school and yet again, after recent days of rain, we had no community water, not one drop because the pipes up in the hills where the catchment is situated were blocked with leaves and mud. Not every household has a rainwater tank. Those who do have small tanks of 200 to 800 litres capacity and people are understandably hesitant to use their limited supply of drinking water to wash, particularly following our recent and prolonged dry period. You can wash at the beach or in a stream if you happen to live near one.
Elections were held here a few days ago. After voting, people were instructed to dip a thumb into a pot of ink so that they couldn’t double back and vote twice. How many thumbs were dipped per pot? I fervently hope that every single voter was virus free.
I fear that if Covid hits these beautiful shores, it will travel like the trade winds. My reasoning is based on first hand observation of the seasonal flu, called the ‘big sik’. The big sik descends at least once a year, or perhaps only once a year but circulates round and round over many months. In the past we’ve contracted it on one visit, returned to Australia, recovered and picked up the same damn thing on our next trip to Vanuatu six months later.
Last year, in the middle of our house construction, Tim got the big sik. At the time, many people in Vanuatu had the flu and were collapsing all over the place, literally collapsing; if you had it and you stood up too fast, it was quite possible to lose consciousness and faint. We were staying at Malowia Guesthouse up in north Efate, close to our house site. When Tim’s fever became unbearable he decided to book into our home away from home in Vila – the Kaiviti Hotel which had the luxury of icy air conditioning, superb beds and room service. My daughter had just arrived for a week’s visit over the Easter period so we waved him goodbye from Malowia as he drove to Vila. I don’t know what I was thinking to let him go off by himself. I was torn between going with him and having to sit quietly in a darkened hotel room watching him sleep so that I could keep an eye on him or spending time with Georgia. We’d been looking forward to her visit for so long. Tim said he didn’t need me and that I should stay with The Kid. He was really disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to do the same.
Two days later Tim phoned from Vila to tell me that he’d fainted in a supermarket and cracked his head open on the tiled floor as well as damaging his hip and back. One lovely lady, to whom I am eternally grateful, rang ProMedical, the private ambulance service who came to treat him. Other people took photos on their phones as shop employees dragged Tim’s body away from the register so that they could keep trading. Some of those photos were posted on Facebook. Such is life in Vanuatu.
Surprisingly, I didn’t get the big sik until two months later but I did get it as did most of the population. The big sik illustrates why I am pretty damn sure that we can’t hold the Coronavirus at bay after it arrives. Social distancing? Isolation? Not realistic in village life.
Gone are the days when the island ring road was just a dirt track and you could go for days without having a vehicle pass by Ekipe. The isolation was part of the attraction for me. Nowadays, people from Ekipe travel frequently into Vila to make market, to shop or pay bills and withdraw money. The nearest bank or ATM is twenty kilometres north and it’s more difficult to travel 20 km north than it is to travel 60 km south to Vila. The Ekipe buses mostly travel south, rarely do they go north.
At the Mama’s Market in Port Vila, ladies and their children sit shoulder to shoulder inside a square area bordered by trestle tables on which their produce is displayed. There are about fifty areas like this one, all under one big roof. The mamas stay at the market for the week, sleeping under their trestle tables at night. A lady is having a little nap under the table in the background while a steady flow of customers shuffle down the walkways between the tables. It’s hot, humid and crowded.
The hospital in Port Vila has just cleaned out a couple of rooms for an isolation ward, big enough for a handful of unlucky patients. Everyone else will just have to cope at home.
We hear how countries such as Italy are experiencing severe difficulties in coping with the vast numbers of infections. If a developed country like Italy can’t manage the situation, what chance does Vanuatu have?
It appears that many young people who contract the virus, experience only mild symptoms and can transmit it unknowingly. For older people with weak lungs or health problems such as diabetes which is prevalent here, the virus could be life threatening. I worry that young people in Vanuatu, particularly children could die as a result of high fevers. Paracetamol, thermometers and other medical supplies common to Australian households are not something that people here would usually have at hand although they do use bush medicines. Our nearest clinic is twenty kilometres north. There is a medical outpost near the nakamal in Ekipe but it has been unmanned since we arrived fifteen months ago.
Latest news today is that schools on Efate will be officially closed for this week however teachers are expected to go to school and prepare a week’s work to give to students. Students are not to attend school. The internet is not generally available to the rural population so using email or sites such as Google Classrooms is not an option. I wonder how the students are going to be able to receive their work packs without physically going to school.
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