The epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic in the small, low-resource country of Timor-Leste, January 2020 - June 2022.

2023-01-19

Niha, Maria Av

Draper, Anthony Dk

Viegas, Odete da Silva

de Araujo, Rui M

Joao, Josefina C

da Silva, Endang

Barreto, Ismail

Sarmento, Nevio

Oakley, Tessa

Machado, Filipe de Neri

Fancourt, Nicholas Ss

Marr, Ian

Dos Santos Fernandes, Liliana N

Martins, Noemia

Arkell, Paul

Tilman, Ari Jp

Dingle, Benjamin

Freitas, Carlito C

Bhowmick, Partha S

Sheridan, Sarah

Howden, Benjamin P

Yan, Jennifer

Francis, Joshua R

Martins, Nelson

COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019

Timor-Leste

contact tracing

low-resource setting

surveillance

Journal Article

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10.33321/cdi.2023.47.1

Timor-Leste, a small, mountainous half-island nation which shares a land border with Indonesia and which is 550 km from Australia, has a population of 1.3 million and achieved independence for the second time in 2002. It is one of the poorest nations in Asia. In response to the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Timor-Leste Ministry of Health undertook surveillance and contact tracing activities on all notified COVID-19 cases. Between 1 January 2020 and 30 June 2022, there were 22,957 cases of COVID-19 notified which occurred in three waves, the first which was delayed until April 2021 (community transmission of B.1.466.2 variant following major flooding), followed by waves in August 2021 (B.1.617.2 Delta variant transmission) and February 2022 (B.1.1.529 Omicron variant transmission). There were 753 people hospitalised due to COVID-19 and 133 deaths. Of the 133 deaths, 122 (92%) were considered not fully vaccinated (< 2 COVID-19 vaccines) and none had received boosters. Timor-Leste implemented measures to control COVID-19, including: rapid closure of international borders; isolation of cases; quarantining of international arrivals and close contacts; restrictions on internal travel; social and physical distancing; and, finally, a country-wide vaccination program. The health system's capacity was never exceeded.

link

Communicable Diseases Intelligence (2018) 2023; 47

Communicable Diseases Intelligence (2018)

2209-6051