The Australian Government is providing additional aid to help Papua New Guinea's response to Covid-19.

A medical assistance team of 17 specialists has been sent to work primarily at the Port Moresby General Hospital

Its work will include strengthening critical care capacity at the struggling hospital and establishing a separate respiratory triage and initial treatment facility.

Australia is also providing thousands more GeneXpert rapid testing cartridges, which will be delivered to PNG next week.

The Australian airforce flight carrying the medical team also took additional medical supplies and infrastructure to support the response.

In the past three weeks Australia has sent eight planeloads of equipment and personnel to help PNG fight Covid-19, which has surged there in the past month.

To date there have been close to 8,000 confirmed victims of the virus and 68 deaths in PNG.

Source: RNZ