A Covid-19 outbreak that forced Fiji's capital into lockdown after the island nation avoided transmission for a year was confirmed as the Indian variant Tuesday, with health officials saying they feared a "tsunami" of cases.

The Pacific country had largely dodged community transmission before a cluster emerged this month centred on a quarantine facility in Nadi, the city that is home to Fiji's international airport.

The permanent secretary for health and medical services, James Fong, said six new cases had emerged in quarantine facilities on Tuesday and events in India showed the threat posed by the strain could not be underestimated.

"We cannot let that nightmare happen in Fiji," he said in a televised address.

"We still have time to stop it happening but a single misstep will bring about the same Covid tsunami that our friends in India, Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States are enduring."

Fiji has largely contained the virus through strict isolation measures and border controls, recording 109 cases and just two deaths in a population of 930,000.

There are currently 42 active cases, 18 of them detected at the border and 24 locally transmitted.

The cluster began when a soldier contracted the virus at a quarantine facility and transmitted it to his wife, who then exposed up to 500 people at a funeral.

Fong said there was evidence that soldiers who had returned from overseas deployments had broken quarantine rules by mixing with each other when they should have been in isolation.

"This is unacceptable," he said, adding that the military was investigating what had happened.

The capital Suva is in lockdown, along with Nadi and Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city.

Authorities on Tuesday banned inter-island travel, while national carrier Fiji Airways has suspended all international and domestic passenger flights.

The emergence of community transmission is a blow for Fiji's hopes of opening quarantine-free travel bubbles with Australia and New Zealand, both major sources of international tourists before the pandemic.

Coronavirus: Latest global developments
Paris (AFP) April 27, 2021 - Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:

- Aid for India -

The first emergency medical supplies trickle into India as a part of a global campaign to staunch its catastrophic outbreak, with the US pledging to send millions of AstraZeneca vaccines.

- Fiji virus 'tsunami'? -

An outbreak of the Indian variant has forced Fiji's capital into lockdown after the island nation had avoided infections for a year, with health officials saying they fear a "tsunami" of cases.

- Hope for big events -

A Barcelona concert with a 5,000-strong audience of unvaccinated music fans last month to test pandemic-safe ways of holding mass events has passed off with "no sign" of infections, doctors say.

- Royally out of touch -

Gaffes during the pandemic have badly hit the popularity of Dutch King Willem-Alexander, whose ratings have tumbled by more than a quarter since the royals flew to Greece for a holiday in October as the Netherlands went into partial lockdown.

- Sputnik resistance -

Brazil's health regulator denies a request from several states to import Russia's Sputnik V jab, saying it does not have the data needed to verify its safety and efficacy, a decision the Russian developers slam as politically motivated.

- German hope -

Europe's biggest economy raises its growth forecast for 2021 as vaccinations finally begin to gather pace.

- India flight ban -

Australia is the latest nation to announce a temporary ban on direct passenger flights from India.

- Tuning out -

Audience figures for this year's Oscars plummeted by more than half to a record low of 9.85 million viewers, broadcaster ABC says.

- Gung-ho golfers -

South Korean-born Olympic golf gold and silver medallists Park In-bee and Lydia Ko say they are not worried about playing at the Tokyo Games despite a surge in infections in Japan.

- More than three million deaths -

At least 3,122,150 people have died of Covid-19 around the world since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

The US is the worst-affected country with 572,674 deaths, followed by Brazil with 391,936, Mexico 215,113, India 197,894 and Britain 127,434.

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