Fiji's parliament has been forced to close as Covid-19 cases surge in the South Pacific country, overwhelming quarantine facilities and prompting calls for a nationwide lockdown, AFP reports.

After a staffer was found to be a close contact of a positive case, speaker Epeli Nailatikau said the legislative buildings in the capital Suva were shut.

“As a precautionary measure and out of an abundance of caution, the parliamentary precincts and offices will be closed with immediate effect,” he said in a statement.

Fiji went a full year without recording any community cases until April, when a second wave of infections hit. New cases have hit daily records, and an outbreak of the quick-spreading Delta variant, first identified in India, detected.