{"id":67863,"date":"2021-10-14T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T19:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=67863"},"modified":"2021-10-13T17:29:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T06:29:30","slug":"covid-19s-toll-on-papua-new-guinea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/covid-19s-toll-on-papua-new-guinea\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19\u2019s toll on Papua New Guinea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Papua New Guinea is divided over its Covid-19 response. The virus has spread throughout the country since March and is now pushing hospitals to capacity in the nation\u2019s worst Covid-19 surge so far<\/a>, but a lack of community education on the pandemic means many are more frightened of the vaccine than they are of the virus.<\/p>\n

Endemic vaccine hesitancy has led to death threats<\/a> against frontline workers. The Delta strain is filling hospitals in Western Province\u2014the region closest to Australia\u2014but people are ignoring restrictions<\/a> and crossing the province\u2019s porous land border with Delta-stricken Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Covid-19 has triggered cascading impacts in PNG\u2019s health, economic, social, civil and administrative sectors while undermining the government\u2019s capacity to address them. Australia should help with PNG\u2019s uphill struggle to respond and recover, and provide more support for the vaccine rollout, governance and community messaging.<\/p>\n

Community transmission since March<\/a> has devastated urban centres and rural villages. Packed hospitals were forced to suspend other critical health services<\/a>. By May, one in three tests<\/a> proving positive at Port Moresby General Hospital indicated drastic rates of community infection.<\/p>\n

Since then, the highly contagious Delta variant has spread to all areas including the remote Western Province<\/a>, where the two main hospitals are now full of Covid patients. In Port Moresby, the general hospital\u2019s Covid quarantine facility is at capacity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PNG\u2019s health system was unprepared. It was already stretched thin and struggling with serious issues<\/a> with staffing, supplies, infrastructure and community health education. PNG\u2019s maternal, child and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the region<\/a>, and diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV<\/a> remain prevalent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Covid hit, PNG had only seven doctors per 10,000 people<\/a> and Australia sent 20 AUSMAT staff with equipment<\/a> to help in April. Australia had Covid under control at that time, which raised questions about why it didn\u2019t do more then to help PNG. A senior PNG doctor suggested Australia should have sent a team of 100<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Immunisation was already a problem. PNG\u2019s baby boom in hard-to-reach rural areas has led to frantic campaigns for basic childhood inoculations. In 2018, it took five nationwide vaccine campaigns<\/a> to suppress a polio<\/a> outbreak. But an immunisation drive requires strong community engagement and education; otherwise, injections can appear sinister and mothers in rural areas worry that jabs will harm their children, especially when \u2018they are not sick<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

That the Covid jab is for adults, and not for infants, raises more questions in the community. It\u2019s unrealistic and unreasonable to expect people with little information and many unanswered questions to volunteer to take the vaccine.<\/p>\n

In May, a World Health Organization\u2013supervised Covid vaccine launch in the Southern Highlands was disrupted by crowds demanding information. The Post Courier<\/em> quoted<\/a> a frustrated local: \u2018First we talked about HIV-AIDS, and then came TB and polio and now COVID-19\u2014this is confusing for us simple villagers. So we need more information on the disease, the side effects, how long it will protect us when we get the jabs.\u2019<\/p>\n

Vaccine misinformation<\/a> and conspiracies have spread rapidly<\/a> via Facebook and WhatsApp, and many people in rural areas lack access to credible information. Solutions could be as simple as financing nationwide radio programs<\/a> to provide medical updates and combat misinformation.<\/p>\n

Vaccine hesitancy is far worse in PNG<\/a> than in Australia, including among healthcare workers<\/a>. Some PNG surveys have found that nearly 80% of people mistrust the vaccines for Covid-19. So far, only\u00a0194,962 doses have been administered<\/a>, or enough for\u00a01.1% of the\u00a0population.<\/p>\n

In April, Australia\u2019s contradictory and inconsistent<\/a> health advice about the AstraZeneca vaccine fuelled widespread fears<\/a>. By June, PNG administrators were \u2018scrambling\u2019 to distribute<\/a> hundreds of thousands of AstraZeneca vaccines donated by New Zealand under the COVAX program, but it was a hard sell and logistically challenging<\/a>. PNG had to transfer 30,000 doses to Vietnam<\/a> to prevent wastage when the vaccines neared expiry.<\/p>\n

Chinese state media chimed in<\/a>, accusing Australia of \u2018working in the shadows\u2019 to sabotage China\u2019s vaccine donations and \u2018dumping its stockpiled, unsafe vaccines\u2019 in PNG.<\/p>\n

Beyond health security, Covid has exacerbated institutional instability in PNG\u2019s governance and service sectors, issues which will take a long time to address.<\/p>\n

Just 13% of PNG\u2019s people live in urban areas, but they are the backbone of the economy and the services and governance sectors. They\u2019re especially vulnerable to Covid due to soaring rates of comorbidities like diabetes<\/a> and drug-resistant tuberculosis<\/a>. High infection and mortality rates among civil servants and administrators have hindered coordinated action on the unfolding crisis<\/a>. Covid-19 has already taken many of the bright minds who might have made crucial contributions to the nation\u2019s recovery.<\/p>\n

Institutional and governance weaknesses<\/a> have increased Covid\u2019s impact and allowed it to cast a darker shadow over national resilience and economic recovery. PNG was let down by these issues and the lack of decisive leadership and messaging. By comparison, Fiji<\/a> has fully vaccinated more than 80% of its population.<\/p>\n

For PNG, economic resilience won\u2019t be just a matter of fixing the damage wrought by Covid. Major challenges that existed before the pandemic, including poor fiscal management, corruption<\/a> and rising national debt, still need to be addressed. Economic dependence on foreign-led resource extraction also undermines resilience, particularly as the large mining sector\u2014the biggest contributor to PNG\u2019s exports<\/a>\u2014relies on foreign fly-in, fly-out employees, many of whom are Australian. The significant reduction in FIFO workers due to the pandemic has slowed work in the sector.<\/p>\n

In May, the Queensland and federal governments reopened<\/a> some limited FIFO operations<\/a>, which was a welcome start. The Australia Papua New Guinea Business Council highlighted the importance of restoring FIFO operations<\/a> to avoid leaving PNG\u2019s economy dead in the water.<\/p>\n

Critically, economic recovery is contingent on resolving the nation\u2019s widespread skills shortages. PNG\u2019s burgeoning youth population could be a boon to the economy if these young people were trained for the workforce, but they are not. Around 87% of the population lives in rural areas with patchy access to education and limited work prospects. Cultural norms restrict women\u2019s participation in the workforce. Around 35% of the population is under 15<\/a> and the median age<\/a> is 22. In the long term, PNG\u2019s skills deficit and rising youth unemployment could threaten economic resilience, stability and governance.<\/p>\n

And while Australia\u2019s development partnership with PNG, valued at $600 million a year, has sponsored education programs through the World Bank<\/a>, it doesn\u2019t encompass ongoing support for a cohesive education program for the nation\u2019s young people. It should.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s national security is linked to our neighbour\u2019s recovery. In my next article, I\u2019ll look at what Australia can do to support PNG\u2019s long road to recovery from Covid-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Papua New Guinea is divided over its Covid-19 response. The virus has spread throughout the country since March and is now pushing hospitals to capacity in the nation\u2019s worst Covid-19 surge so far, but a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1243,"featured_media":67867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,2658,162,357],"class_list":["post-67863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-coronavirus","tag-governance","tag-papua-new-guinea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCovid-19\u2019s toll on Papua New Guinea | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/covid-19s-toll-on-papua-new-guinea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Covid-19\u2019s toll on Papua New Guinea | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Papua New Guinea is divided over its Covid-19 response. 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