Two Fijian pregnant women are among the 21 COVID-19 deaths reported within a seven-day period from July 14.
Their babies, however, were saved via a caesarean operation by the obstetric team.
Ministry of Health and Medical Services permanent secretary Dr James Fong revealed this in his COVID-19 live update this evening as he announced the country’s 1091 COVID-19 positive cases recorded in the last 24 hours that ended at 8am today.
He said the 21 COVID-19 deaths were recorded from July 14-20.
He said both mothers had been unwell with COVID symptoms at home before presenting to health facilities in severe respiratory distress.
“In both cases, our physicians made the decision to conduct emergency caesarean operations to rescue the new-borns and assist with the care of the mothers,” Dr Fong said.
“Sadly, despite the best efforts of their attending physicians, both mothers passed away.”
Dr Fong said maternal deaths at any time were a tragedy and maternal deaths due to COVID-19 were a clear indication of the severity of this outbreak.
He said the present outbreak was contained to Viti Levu, and primarily in the Lami-Suva-Nausori corridor.
And over the last week, he added that her been an increasing number of cases reported in the Western Division.
Meanwhile, Dr Fong also announced 317 new recoveries with more than 4550 recoveries from the virus in total.
“Recovery is possible. In fact, most patients will recover.
“The sooner those most at-risk are identified and treated, the more likely they will be to recover as well. Many of those recoveries will continue to come out of our field hospitals,” he said.
