Two positive COVID19 patients have been placed in intensive care after their conditions deteriorated, as Fiji’s Ministry of Health confirmed two new local transmission cases, one of them a health worker at one of the isolation wards in the central division.

Fiji’s Ministry of Health did not say which of the isolation facilities’ ICU the two existing cases are being accommodated in, only saying that they are receiving the best possible care from their attending physicians.

Of the two new cases, the healthcare worker who is based at the Colo-i-Suva isolation ward registered a positive test during a routine swabbing and has been placed in isolation. The first is the husband of case number 159 from the Vunimono cluster and had been in isolation since 12 May.

Both patients are asymptomatic, which means they are not displaying COVID-like symptoms, the ministry said.