Radio New Zealand Pacific reports that several importers in PNG have struggled to bring goods in because of the difficulty finding foreign exchange, which is being tightly controlled by the central bank, the Bank of PNG.
Most notably among these importers is fuel retailer, Puma, which has been forced to ration supplies at times over the past six months.
RNZ Pacific's PNG correspondent Scott Waide said it was a serious situation with knock-on effects to the health system which is currently dealing with two issues.
"The first is a rise in TB cases post-Covid. There's been a 19% increase, so about 7000 new cases on top of the 30,000 that we already have in the country.
"And on top of that, you've got the difficulty of getting medicines on time, because there's a foreign currency shortage, and the health department can't get its cheques cleared in order to purchase the medicines on time."
According to a brief released last week, the Department of Health, international partners such as the World Bank, the Australian government and others, have been called on to help plug the gaps in the medicine shortages, specifically drugs to combat TB, Waide and RNZ Pacific reported.
