The Ministry of Health and the National Health Cluster developed a COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan in early 2020, which sets out the activities and resources required to prevent and mitigate COVID-19 in Vanuatu. The most recent updated version was released in October 2020.
The Plan outlines two (2) main phases of action:
Phase 1: Containment
This aims to:
to prevent the importation or introduction of cases from affected areas including through quarantine; and
to contain imported cases and related clusters to prevent the spread to other areas of Vanuatu.
The containment phase covers two scenarios:
Scenario 1: where there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Vanuatu
Scenario 2A: 1 or more cases detected in quarantine (border cases)
Scenario 2B: 1 or more individual cases locally detected (sporadic cases) or cluster(s) of cases in time, geographic location and/or common exposure (cluster of cases)
Phase 2: Mitigation
This aims to:
Ensure prevention and mitigation of the spread of the outbreak.
It covers one scenario:
Scenario 3: large outbreak of local transmission (community transmission) of COVID-19 in Vanuatu.