Papua New Guinea authorities have approved a mass burial to take pressure off Port Moresby's hospital morgue where bodies are stacked on top of each other as COVID-19 cases surge.
National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning has authorised the burial of 200 bodies out of more than 300 at the morgue which was built to cater for only 60, PNG newspaper The National reports.
National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said refrigerated containers had been installed to store more bodies and a mass burial was planned for this week.
Port Moresby General Hospital CEO Paki Molumi said the names of the dead to be buried would be advertised in the city's newspapers and relatives had 72 hours to claim the bodies.
The PNG capital is bracing meanwhile for a possible lockdown this week to try to reduce coronavirus cases and deaths in a city where 99 per cent of COVID cases admitted to the general hospital are unvaccinated.
National health board deputy chairman Mathias Sapuri said a two-week lockdown across PNG was the only way to control the Covid-19 surge.
"The virus stops moving when people stop moving," he said.
Governor Parkop earlier this month said he would oppose any further lockdowns in Port Moresby because of the costs of previous ones but the latest surge in cases appears to have changed his mind.
"If the doctors tell me that we have to lock down because they cannot cope any more, then I will follow their advice," he told The National.
Other regions in PNG have already imposed lockdowns and curfews in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus in a country where less than one per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated.
PNG has officially confirmed 26,731 coronavirus cases and 329 deaths but it's believed many more cases and deaths are going unreported in the nation of nine million where vaccination hesitancy is reported to be high.
