Vanuatu is one of the exotic and fascinating islands in the Pacific region. Like other Pacific countries, it relies heavily on tourism to boost its economy. The government, therefore, had to be proactive and vigilant in dealing with the global pandemic COVID-19 and, so far, has been quite successful in its planning. By 22nd December 2021, there are no active cases in the country. 2 people were in isolation by now, but they are fully declared as recovered and were given green light for discharge from the medical teams.
Since the pandemic, there were only seven active in Vanuatu, which has been detected in quarantine. They were moved to isolation wards and eventually declared recovered and discharged from the isolation ward. The health ministry reported conducting over 23,000 tests of travelers from Australia and New Zealand, none of which was detected with COVID-19. Besides test on arrival and preemptive approach on quarantine, there are other steps taken by the government, which are enlightened in this article.
Vaccination
A massive vaccination campaign was launched nationwide, from 2nd June 2021, initially targeting the priority groups. From 21st June, the COVID vaccinations were launched for all adults over 18 years. The roll-out was successfully commenced and is still going in all six provinces nationwide. Only in Port Vila, the vaccination is conducted at George Pompidou Vaccination Center, while there are mobile teams operational everywhere. At present, 72% of 146,423 have at least received a single dose in high-priority areas. While in other areas, it has a remarkable rate of 62%.
Declaration of National State of Emergency
The country has only seven cases reported to date, largely owing to the National State of Emergency declared by the President on 26th March 2020, which lasted for two weeks. It aimed at strengthening prevention while introducing containment measures to combat the global pandemic. Since April, the state of emergency has been extended various times for continuing with the COVID-19 prevention, and for containing in response to the tropical cyclones hit as well impacting the country adversely. The last Emergency is from 1st August 2021 to 31st December 2021, to fully end the impacts of COVID-19 due to the outbreak of variants of the pandemic.
Travel Advice and Safety
The Ministry of Health conducts the COVID-19 risk evaluation for countries with foreign travel origin before they arrive in Vanuatu. The countries that are classified as high-risk countries are those with ten or more active cases per 100,000 population in the last 14 days, thus are not allowed to enter the country. The PCR test must be done, which should not be more than 72 hours before the scheduled time of the flight.
Further, all travelers above the age of 18 must be fully vaccinated to be granted permission to enter the country. To fall under the category of fully vaccinated, the travelers must receive the final dose of the WHO listed vaccine either 14 days before departure from the native country, in case of recommended two doses of the vaccine. If the WHO-recommended vaccine must have a single dose it must be 28 days before your flight from the originated country.
As of 13 October 2021, there are 7 WHO vaccines: Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Oxford/AstraZeneca, Serum Institute of India Covishield (Oxford/AstraZeneca formulation), Sinopharm (Beijing) and Sinovac CoronaVac. Currently, all the visitors need to have a 14-day quarantine in the government-designated facility. The passengers entering Vanuatu need to pay for their quarantine on their own. Further, the monitoring of the quarantine will be via phone call on 2/3 day, 8/9 day and last day, while having them tested on day 5 and day 11.
All these keen and stern steps have led to zero active cases in the country. The Vanuatu government is applauded and acknowledged due to its efforts in ensuring the safety and health of visitors. This is an attractive factor for those, who are thinking of Investment for Vanuatu Passport. They can get the complete details of the process along with human assistance at official website of Vanuatu Investment & Migration Bureau.
