The consequences for Papua New Guinea and Australia of low covid vaccine acceptance in PNG

All the contacts I consulted agreed that it will be an absolute miracle if 25 per cent of the Papua New Guinea population agreed to be vaccinated.

The accepted international standard is that a minimum of 75 per cent vaccine take up is necessary to provide adequate community protection.

There are many reasons why the response so far is tragically low Without going into them comprehensively they centre around cultural opposition to vaccinations generally, an organised social media campaign against vaccinations AND a total lack of community confidence in the Papua New Guinea health system.

What can Australia do in the face of this reality?

It is clear to me that it is beyond our capacity, and beyond Papua New Guinea's capacity, to secure even majority vaccine take up across the diverse communities of Papua New Guinea.

It is apparent the development assistance allocation for the year ahead, though well intended, is frankly misdirected.

I believe the last thing we want on our border and in our populous closest neighbour is Covid-19 being endemic in the population. Even with low testing, and unreliable reporting of cases Papua New Guinea is today experiencing a daily average of 250 new cases with the majority in Port Moresby and Western Province (the Province nearest to Australia) but increasingly in just about all of the 22 provinces in Papua New Guinea.

So while it might not yet be classed as "endemic" it is apparent the virus is spreading rapidly. Since the virus was first detected there have been just 110,00 tests done in a population of more than 8 million (and many of those tests have been taken up by the expatriate community). From those tests 13,500 have been positive. That is by world standards a very high percentage.

One reason why even that number of positive tests has not increased apparent community resistance to vaccinations is that the death rate is comparatively low – 136 deaths up to the middle of last week.

The low though tragic death rate is almost certainly due to the fact that the average age of the PNG population is in the 20's.

Having consulted widely, and read extensively, I believe Australia must urgently revise its approach to development assistance for Papua New Guinea. We have been generous in the provision of protection and testing equipment, and the supply of vaccines.

But the real issue we have to confront as a good neighbour and persuade the Government of Papua New Guinea to confront is the overall condition of the PNG health system – hospitals, health centres and the supply of vital medicines across the country.

While Covid-19 is a crisis for PNG so is the true state of the health system and its devastating impact on the health and living standards of the good people of our neighbour.