PIF countries to cooperate on medical assistance, flights and shipping

Pacific Island Forum Leaders will establish a Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19 which could see the expediting of medical assistance and customs clearance of medical supplies, and facilitating of diplomatic clearances for chartered flights and commercial shipping.

Forum Foreign Ministers met virtually yesterday and established a Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19 to allow for faster and easier assistance and cooperation between member countries in response to the pandemic.

 “The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health emergency of unprecedented scale. It poses a real and extreme danger to the health and security of the Pacific peoples. Never before has the full Forum Membership simultaneously been in crisis,” said the Tuvalu Prime Minister and Pacific Islands Forum Chair, Kausea Natano.

The Chair of yesterday’s meeting, Simon Kofe of Tuvalu, said that responding to COVID-19 as a region reflected the Tuvaluan concept of te fale-pili, which literally means houses in close proximity to one another, and which implies a moral responsibility to protect neighbours.

Forum members to already report diagnosed cases of COVID-19 are: Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

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