JOANNE Schulz who was declared Papua New Guinea’s second confirmed COVID-19 case in 2020, says there is still not enough awareness to help people to prepare themselves for the virus.
Ms Schulz has been a volunteer with the East New Britain Provincial Health Authority for the past five years and is also a health advocate for TB, HIV and now COVID-19.
She is currently assisting the Rabaul district team on awareness in the Local Level Governments. She has visited over 11 wards averaging 1, 000 people per ward that have had no proper awareness.
“What I find alarming is in every community we have visited to advocate and educate on testing protocols, preventative measures, signs and symptoms, stigma and discrimination and to encourage home isolation, these communities have yet to have had any form of awareness since my confirmation with COVID-19 last year,” she said.
“One full year of no such awareness and how is it that our provincial authorities are not seeing the core problem of this new virus, despite so much funding brought into the province?” she questioned.
Ms Schulz said there should be funding for awareness programs as it plays a critical role in prevention.
She raised concerns that with all the protocol measures in place, most people did not understand and there is no compliance, and one good example is PMVs still full to the brim with passengers.
“We do not have enough resources to isolate cases and test so why not get out and do more awareness and disseminate the right information to the people.
“Compliance to preventative measures and protocols is a waste of time, if people do not understand the importance as to why they need to comply. Educating our people and delivering a service and information they deserve is critical and will be very much effective in the event another wave hits,” she highlighted.
She appealed to the relevant authorities to continue to drive awareness to the villages and wards to educate the people on the virus.
She said awareness is key and when people are educated, they will stop discriminating against others.
Meantime, Ms Schulz has commended the ENB Chamber of Commerce for playing its part to promote awareness throughout the province over the last 12 months.