A Tongan cybersecurity expert says the country’s health data hack is a “wake-up call” for the whole region.

Siosaia Vaipuna, a former director of Tonga’s cybersecurity agency, spoke to RNZ Pacific in the wake of the June 15 cyberattack on the country’s Health Ministry.

Vaipuna said Tonga and other Pacific nations were vulnerable to data breaches due to the lack of awareness and cybersecurity systems in the region.

“There’s increasing digital connectivity in the region, and we’re sort of . . . the newcomers to the internet,” he said.

“I think the connectivity is moving faster than the online safety awareness activity [and] that makes not just Tonga, but the Pacific more vulnerable and targeted.”

Since the data breach, the Tongan government has said “a small amount” of information from the attack was published online. This included confidential information, it said in a statement.

Reporting on the attack has also attributed the breach to the group Inc Ransomware.

Vaipuna said the group was well-known and had previously focused on targeting organisations in Europe and the US.

New Zealand attack
However, earlier this month, it targeted the Waiwhetū health organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand. That attack reportedly included the theft of patient consent forms and education and training data.

“This type of criminal group usually employs a double-extortion tactic,” Vaipuna said.

It could encrypt data and then demand money to decrypt, he said.

“The other ransom is where they are demanding payment so that they don’t release the information that they hold to the public or sell it on to other cybercriminals.”

In the current Tonga cyberattack, media reports say that Inc Ransomware wanted a ransom of US$1 million for the information it accessed. The Tongan government has said it has not paid anything.

Vaipuna said more needed to be done to raise awareness in the region around cybersecurity and online safety systems, particularly among government departments.

“I think this is a wake-up call. The cyberattacks are not just happening in movies or on the news or somewhere else, they are actually happening right on our doorstep and impacting on our people.

Extra vigilance warning
“And the right attention and resources should rightfully be allocated to the organisations and to teams that are tasked with dealing with cybersecurity matters.”

The Tongan government has also warned people to be extra vigilant when online.

It said more information accessed in the cyberattack may be published online, and that may include patient information and medical records.

“Our biggest concern is for vulnerable groups of people who are most acutely impacted by information breaches of this kind,” the government said.

It said that it would contact these people directly.

The country’s ongoing response was also being aided by experts from Australia’s special cyberattack team.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In February 2025, Dr Diana Sarfati resigned, not unexpectedly, as Director-General of Health after only two years into her five-year term.

As a medical specialist, and in her role as developing the successful cancer control agency, she had extensive experience in New Zealand’s health system.

However, she did not conform to the privately expressed view of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon: That the problem with the health system is that it is led by health.

Responsibility for the appointment of public service chief executives rests with the Public Service Commissioner.

In carrying out this function, Brian Roche had two choices for the process of selecting Sarfati’s replacement — run a contestable hiring process (the usual method) or appoint someone without this process.

With the required approval of Attorney-General Judith Collins and Health Minister Simeon Brown, Roche opted for the exception rather than the rule.

This suggests a degree of pre-determination to appoint someone without the “hindrance” of health system experience, consistent with Luxon’s view.

An appointment from outside health
Consequently, on April 1, Audrey Sonerson was appointed the new Director-General of Health for a five-year term.

She had been the Ministry of Transport chief executive (including when Brown was transport minister). She also had senior positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in the Police and Treasury.

Though she had been part of the Treasury’s health team and has a master’s in health economics, her only health system experience was in the brief hiatus between Sarfati’s resignation when acting director-general and becoming the confirmed replacement.

‘For a minister with no experience of the complexity of health care delivery to choose a director-general who herself has no health experience is extremely concerning.’

— Dr David Galler, former intensive care specialist

This is unprecedented for the director-general position. Sonerson is the 18th person to hold this position. The first 10 had been medical doctors. In 1992, the first non-doctor holder was appointed (a Canadian with some health management experience).

The subsequent six appointees all had extensive health system experience. Three were medical doctors (two in population health), two had been district health board chief executives, and one had been the director-general in Scotland and a medical geographer.

Dr David Galler is well-placed to comment on the significance of this extraordinary change of direction. He is a retired intensive care specialist and former President of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.

He held the unique position of principal medical adviser to the health minister, the ‘eyes and ears’ of the health system for three health ministers in the mid to late 2000s. He also worked closely with two director-generals.

Drawing on this experience, Galler observes that: “Director-generals of health must be respected, influential, knowledgeable, connected and trusted, to ensure that good policy goes into practice and good practice informs policy . . .  For a minister with no experience of the complexity of health care delivery to choose a director-general who herself has no health experience is extremely concerning.”

Breadth of the health system
As the director-general heads up the Health Ministry, she is responsible for being the “steward” of our health system. In this context she is the lead adviser to the government on health. In the context of seeking to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders, the organisation Sonerson now leads is responsible for:

• the stewardship and leadership of the health system; and
• advising her minister and government on health and disability matters.

These responsibilities have to be considered in the context of how extensive the health system is beginning with its complexity, highly specialised range of health professional occupational groups, and its breadth.

This breadth ranges from community healthcare (predominantly general practices), local 24/7 acute hospitals, tertiary hospitals (lower volume, high complexity) and quaternary care services (national services for very uncommon or highly complex even lower volume procedures and treatments, including experimental medicine, uncommon surgical procedures, and advanced trauma care).

Another way of looking at this breadth is that it ranges in treatment from medical to surgical to mental health to diagnostic. And then there is population health such as epidemiology.

Population health and the Health Act
However, responsibility extends further to specific obligations under the Health Act 1956, many of which are operational. Although it is nearly 60 years old, this act has been updated by legislative amendments many times and as recently as 2022 with the passing of the Pae Ora Act that disestablished district health boards and established Health New Zealand.

The Health Act gives Sonerson’s health ministry the function of improving, promoting and protecting public health (as distinct from personal diagnostic and treatment health). Public health is legislatively defined as meaning either the health of all New Zealanders or a population group, community, or section of people within New Zealand.

A critical part of this role is the responsibility for ensuring that local government authorities improve, promote, and protect public health within their districts in appointing key positions (such as medical officers of health, environmental health officers and health protection officers); food and water safety; regular inspections for any nuisances, or any conditions likely to be injurious to health or offensive and, where necessary, secure their abatement or removal; make bylaws for the protection of public health; and provide reports on diseases and sanitary conditions within each district.

The population function under the Health Act of improving, promoting, and protecting public health means that how well the health ministry under Sonerson’s leadership performs directly affects the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

This is an immense responsibility that cannot be minimised.

Understanding universal health systems
Universal health systems such as ours are characterised by being highly complex, adaptive and labour intensive and innovative (innovation primarily comes from its workforce). They provide a public good (rather than commodities) and their breadth is considerable.

But, despite appearances to the contrary, the different parts of this breadth don’t function separately from each other. They are not just interconnected; they are interdependent.

As a result, each part makes up a highly integrated system. Consequently, relationships are critical. The more relational the culture, the better the system will perform; the more contractual the culture, the poorer it will perform.

Galler’s experience-based above-mentioned observation needs to be seen in the context of the challenging nature of universal health systems.

In a wider discussion on health system leadership, Auckland surgeon Dr Erica Whineray Kelly got to the core of the issue very well: “You’d never have a conductor of an orchestra who’d never played an instrument.”

Audrey Sonerson comes into the director-general position with a deficit. It will help her performance if she first recognises that there are many unknowns for her and then proceeds to listen to those within the system who possess the experience of knowing well these unknowns.

It might go some way to alleviating the legitimate concerns of Galler and Whineray Kelly and many others.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes. This article was first published by Newsroom and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Labour leader Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon have faced off in a fast-paced but unspectacular debate in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election campaign with co-governance and gangs among the issues producing the liveliest exchanges.

It was the first time the two leaders had squared off against each other outside Parliament and at times the mood was tense during last night’s debate.

Luxon, in particular, appeared frustrated when Hipkins interjected, while the Labour leader appeared to be enjoying himself a bit more.

However, with Labour behind in the polls, Hipkins was unable to deliver anything telling enough to put Luxon off his stride.

He did manage some amusing lines, however, such as “We have a proven track record of reducing our emissions . . . it’s not just a bunch of slogans”, “building EV stations is like building petrol stations”, and when asked what was his worst quality he responded with a smile: “I need to delegate more”.

Afterwards both leaders professed themselves happy with how they performed, however, commentators on TV1 were less enthusiastic, with former MP Tau Henare saying there was no excitement and Hipkins had been “too mild”.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe believed Hipkins had allowed Luxon too much of a free run and the National party leader made the most of it. Both declared the debate a tie.

Wide-ranging debate
The debate was wide-ranging, covering health, housing, crime and gangs, climate change and the economy. 1News political editor Jessica Mutch-McKay kept it moving at a fast clip and co-governance, especially in health, led to some intense debate.

The leaders were both asked if Māori and Pacific people should get priority when it came to the health waitlist. Luxon said need should come first ahead of ethnicity, while Hipkins said Māori and Pacific people having priority was a positive due to their poor health outcomes when compared to the rest of the population.

Hipkins said other parties were using the issue to “race-bait”, to which Luxon interjected “rubbish”.

Luxon said he felt the definition of co-governance had been expanded since the last time National was in government and the public had not been given adequate explanations of what it entailed.

Hipkins said co-governance meant shared decision-making over natural resources which had been successful. He believed Māori and government working together benefited New Zealand.

Luxon said he supported it for Treaty of Waitangi settlements but not for national public services and repeated his party’s intention of axing the Māori Health Authority.

“The Māori Health Authority isn’t having two separate systems,” Hipkins said.

Luxon challenged in Māori health
He challenged Luxon on why he would keep Māori health providers if he did not want two systems of health. Luxon said he wanted to “turbo-charge” community organisations but it would be as part of one health system.

Hipkins said the health system was dealing with systemic issues and it would take time to build capacity to fix them.

But Luxon said every single health indicator had worsened under Labour — although Hipkins countered that by saying falling smoking rates were one example of effective action.

He said he did not feel safe in downtown Auckland and believed many New Zealanders felt the same.

Under Labour the prison population had been reduced by 30 percent — which might have been acceptable if the crime rate had gone down by the same amount — but in fact it had risen sharply, Luxon said.

On gangs he claimed: “We have nine gang members for every 10 police officers in this country.

“We’re going to make sure we ban gang patches in public places, we give police dispersal and powers to break them up from planning criminal activity, we get tough on the illegal guns that they have and we make being a gang member an aggravating factor in sentencing.”

Consequences for young offenders
He also promised there would be consequences for serious young offenders.

Hipkins said the escalation in gang activity was unacceptable and acknowledged that more New Zealanders were feeling unsafe. However, he advocated working with young offenders to turn their lives around which would reduce crime.

On boot camps, told that an expert had said 83 percent of young people who went through them re-offend, Luxon said National would make them “more effective”.

“We need targeted interventions in these young people’s lives. I’m not prepared to write them off.”

When Hipkins tried to intervene and say how boot camps did not get results, Luxon hit back saying Labour had had six years to get it right.

Hipkins said Labour had changed the law so police could be tougher on gang convoys, such as the recent one that closed down parts of Ōpōtiki over a tangi.

Insults fly on housing
Luxon slammed Labour’s record on housing while Hipkins said National’s plan was to offer incentives to landlords whereas Labour was focused on getting people into homes.

Hipkins said there were more “mega landlords” these days and that was not right.

“Will you guarantee your tax breaks for landlords will get passed on to tenants?” Hipkins asked Luxon.

Luxon avoided a direct answer so the Labour leader answered on his behalf, saying “We’ll take that as a no.”

Both leaders stated they supported building more state houses — although Hipkins was critical of how state houses had been sold off the last time National was in government.

Hipkins admitted KiwiBuild had been an “unrealistic promise” but since then Labour had created momentum in house supply which needed to be continued.

Afterwards both leaders were relaxed. Hipkins was reluctant to score himself, saying the voters would decide, but when pressed again opted for an eight.

Luxon said he had enjoyed it and hoped viewers did also while also choosing an eight.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the national health system relies on New Zealanders’ continued cooperation as almost 20,000 cases are announced today.

Dr Bloomfield is resuming his appearance at daily 1pm media briefings amid the omicron outbreak, with peak cases and hospitalisations expected in the next few weeks.

He said today nearly 20,000 new cases of covid-19 had been reported, with 373 people in hospital, nine of whom are in ICU.

He said it was hard to estimate how many people in hospital with covid-19 were there because of the virus, as opposed to simply having the virus and being there for a different reason.

However, he said Middlemore Hospital’s estimate of about 70 percent to 80 percent presenting because of covid-19 symptoms gives a good gauge.

There are just under 100,000 active cases across the motu, he said.

“I know that such a high daily case number can be concerning for people to hear, and many of us will now have whānau members who now have covid-19, but it’s important to remember that covid-19 now is a very different foe to what it was at the beginning of the pandemic.”

He said what had helped New Zealand so far had been doing the basics well and people should keep doing this — wearing masks, practising good hand hygiene, and avoiding going out if unwell.

“There’s no doubt the next few weeks are going to be tough, the health system can’t do it alone, so thanks in advance to all New Zealanders for continuing to support our efforts to live with the virus on our terms.”

Watch a replay of the briefing here:

The media conference today. Video: RNZ News

He said the high vaccination rate meant for most people omicron would be a milder illness and could be managed safely at home.

Dr Bloomfield says PCR testing had served New Zealand “incredibly well”, but with thousands of cases each day the country reached the point last week where rapid antigen testing became both useful and appropriate.

He said samples were typically pooled earlier on in the outbreak, but a positive test in a batch means each will need to be retested. Higher test positivity rates now, however, mean it becomes less feasible.

He said prior to February 7, none of the labs had ever exceeded 5 percent test positivity, but the swift increase in positive cases has affected that. Labs have also had other difficulties, including vacancies in roles and sickness because some lab workers had contracted the virus.

Apology over test result backlog
Dr Bloomfield said he wanted to apologise to people whose tests had been delayed, but said they had committed to completing the test processing.

People are still advised to seek a test, though some people facing a longer delay should also seek a rapid antigen test, he said.

The samples affected by the backlog might be slightly less accurate — they were more likely to show a negative result — but all positive results would be accurate.

Dr Bloomfield said some 9000 tests were sent to Queensland for testing, to help clear the backlog. He said the backlog was clearing, but anyone who had had a test on February 23 or earlier, or who had developed symptoms, should collect a rapid antigen test from their local testing centre or seek advice from Healthline.

He said the problem with delays in PCR testing was less to do with delays in rolling out rapid antigen tests, and more to do with the ministry being “a day or two late” to recognise how quickly the virus was spreading.

“Once the samples were in the lab it’s hard to take them out and redistribute them, so we still had capacity across the network but we didn’t have the opportunity to redistribute them and probably if we’d started to do that a day or two earlier, then we may still have had a backlog but perhaps not such a big one.”

Dr Bloomfield said test processing had got to a much more manageable level in the past 24 to 48 hours.

He said there was strong uptake of RATs for people who had symptoms, or who were household or close contacts, as well as surveillance testing at hospitals and aged care facilities.

If people needed to pick up a rapid antigen test, the Healthpoint website had an increasing list of places where they were available.

Dr Bloomfield said there were good numbers of the tests available now — more than five million had been distributed in the last seven days, there were over 12 million in storage, and more than 16 million were expected to arrive this week.

Self-reporting of test results
Bloomfield thanks the more than 40,000 people who have self-reported a rapid antigen test result. He says it is an important measure to give officials a good idea of how far the virus is spreading.

He says people who are unwell will be given enough tests for three tests per eligible person in their household. People who are critical workers can also preorder the tests online from testing centres.

During question time Dr Bloomfield said there was a bit of a lag on whole genome sequencing for those who have been in hospital, and with the short hospital stay times, there is not an accurate picture of how many cases in hospital are omicron versus delta.

The most common symptoms are cough, sore and scratchy throat, a runny nose, and generally feeling unwell, “that sort of flu-ey feeling, the whole body aches”, but people who are not boosted are far more likely to have more severe symptoms.

Dr Bloomfield said the loss of sense of smell and taste does not appear to be as much of a notable symptom for omicron, but some young people had also been experiencing an upset stomach.

The past two days have seen daily cases above the 14,000 mark, and hospitalisations have also continued to increase, reaching 344 yesterday.

It comes as the government yesterday confirmed New Zealanders would be able to return to New Zealand without isolating, with the date for returnees from countries other than Australia brought forward to Friday.

New Zealanders in Australia and critical workers were yesterday able to return without entering managed isolation.

People who are eligible but have not yet got their booster shot are urged to, as it protects against both transmission and severe illness from the omicron variant.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the omicron outbreak is likely to peak in Aotearoa New Zealand in three to six weeks.

At that point, she says, the country will move down the traffic light settings, easing off gathering limits.

“We are predicting cases will continue to double every three to four days … it’s likely then that very soon we will all know people who have covid, or we will potentially get it ourselves,” Ardern says.

She says there are three reasons that is no longer as scary a prospect as it used to be.

“Firstly, we are highly vaccinated, and that happened before omicron set in.”

Secondly she said that meant omicron would be a mild to moderate illness, and boosters made hospitalisation 10 times less likely.

Third, public health measures like masks, gathering limits and vaccine passes were helping slow down the spread to ensure everyone who needed a hospital bed can get it.

The plan is working
“So far, that plan is working. We have 46 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 367 in New South Wales and 664 in Victoria at the same point in the outbreak. Our hospitalisations too are well below Australian states at a similar time.”

Ardern said cases were likely to peak in mid- to late March, some three to six weeks away.

At that point a rapid decline, followed by cases stabilising at a lower level was likely.

Ardern said at that point the traffic light system could change, because it meant public health measures used to protect the health system could be eased off.

She said vaccine passes had been necessary as the “least bad option” but they had always been temporary.

After we come through a wave and a peak of omicron, many unvaccinated people would have been exposed to covid-19.

She says coming through the peak would allow the government to ease mandates in places where they were less likely to impact on vulnerable people.

“They will remain important in some areas though, for some time.”

Beyond omicron … the easing of covid restrictions. Video: RNZ News

Mandates to remain in some areas
Mandates were likely to remain for some areas — particularly sections of the healthcare workforce — but there would be a narrowing of where they were required, she said.

She said it was hard to set a date, but the government needed to ensure the country was  “well beyond the peak” and that the pressure on the health system was manageable.

She said the reasons not to do away with the traffic light system entirely was so the country was prepared for new variants and potential future waves, and the coming of winter at the same time as flu returns.

“To summarise then, the coming weeks. Covid will increase, and rapidly. There will be disruption and pressure from omicron. We must brace through the next six weeks, but we can do so knowing the future with fewer restrictions is near because that has always been the course we have chartered,” Ardern said.

She said that as the country reached the peak and started to come down New Zealanders could all move towards a “new normal” they can all live with.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson has outlined new financial supports to help businesses impacted by the red settings.

High daily cases continue
Daily covid-19 cases continued to increase dramatically over the weekend, reaching a new high of 2522 on Sunday — with two new deaths — and remaining above 2300 today.

The high case load has also led to an increase in related hospitalisations, putting strain on the health system which is already seeing some patients spending up to 36 hours in emergency departments, often waiting for hours in corridors.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there had also been two covid-19 related deaths as well as 2365 new community cases.

“Sadly, we are today reporting the death of a patient at Middlemore Hospital.”

A patient in their 70s at Auckland City Hospital also died following a diagnosis of Covid-19, the ministry said.

“Our thoughts and condolences are with both patients’ family and friends.”

There are 116 people in hospital today – one in Northland, 20 in North Shore, 34 in Middlemore, 47 in Auckland, one in Tauranga, 12 in Waikato and one in Tairāwhiti.

There is one case in ICU or HDU.

The average age of the current hospitalisations is 58.

Ardern’s message to protesters
Ardern said she had a final message for those occupying the lawns of Parliament: “Everyone is over covid. No one wants to live with rules or restrictions, but had we not been willing to work together to protect one another then we would have all been worse off as individuals, including losing people we love.

“That hasn’t happened here for the most part and that is a fact worth celebrating, rather than protesting.

“We all want to go back to the way life was, and we will, I suspect sooner than you think. But when that happens it will be because easing restrictions won’t compromise the life of thousands of people — not because you demand it.

“Now is not the time to dismantle our hard work and preparation, to remove our armour just as the battle begins.”

Ardern said she still had confidence in the police commissioner and “the enormous job” he and all police did every day, including on the forecourt of Parliament right now.

Asked when protesters would be gone, she said enforcement of the law was a decision that lay with police, she said.

She said her speech today was “absolutely not” in response to the demands of the protesters.

‘Bullying’ and ‘harassment’
She said the protesters had been engaging in illegal activity that bordered on and demonstrated “bullying” and “harassment” of Wellingtonians, and she found the opposition calls for more details on lowering restrictions “quite upsetting to see they now seem to be responding and sympathising with the protesters”.

She said no one should have to put up with having human waste thrown at them, as police say happened this morning.

This morning she again urged protesters at Parliament to go home.

Police early today moved to contain the convoy protest — which has now been at Parliament for two weeks — by installing concrete barriers to prevent more vehicles from entering the area.

A researcher today warned that the continued presence of far-right elements among the protesters risked greater radicalisation, and possible violence.

Ardern has maintained there will be no engagement with the protesters, and although ACT leader David Seymour spoke to some of their representatives last week, all parties have since signed a letter from the Speaker saying there would be no dialogue from politicians until disruptive and threatening behaviour was brought to an end.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand, Australia and other nations in the Pacific need to do more to combat rampant vaccine misinformation in Pacific Island countries, which poses a threat to the whole region, a researcher says.

The Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank has released projections for when Pacific countries are likely to have vaccinated most of their populations against covid-19.

Lowy researcher Alexandre Dayant said while some Pacific countries have been world-leading in vaccine coverage, others are coming last, and parts of the region now face a humanitarian crisis.

Smaller countries like the Cook Islands, Palau, Nauru and Niue have already achieved majority vaccination thresholds, but other countries lag far behind.

The forecasting shows that even by the start of 2023 there will likely still be a vast chunk of the population unvaccinated in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

Samoa is not expected to have vaccinated everyone 12 years and older until June next year, and Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Kiribati are not expected to achieve full vaccination for those over 18 years old until part-way through 2022.

In Papua New Guinea, only 1.7 percent of the eligible population have been vaccinated so far, and the Lowy report said it could take until 2026 for just one third to be vaccinated.

Misinformation a barrier
Dayant said one of the main issues in PNG and elsewhere in the Pacific is misinformation.

He said that as well as continuing to support the health system in Pacific countries, New Zealand and the international community should help counter the rampant misinformation about vaccines.

“New Zealand and Australia could help in some ways – dealing with Facebook, seeing what can be done to better control the spread of misinformation on Facebook. I think this is an issue that Facebook has had to deal with for many years.

“Development partners must continue to partner with local government on their targeted counter-misinformation campaigns and develop a media messaging plan to ensure consistency of messaging about vaccines.”

The report said vaccine supply to Pacific nations was also still an issue, but lack of healthcare workers and difficulties getting to those who need to be vaccinated has created bigger logistical challenges, with many remote and diverse areas.

“How well vaccines are distributed and administered will have significant health, social and economic ramifications in the Pacific,” it said.

The New Zealand Council for International Development’s humanitarian network chair Quenelda Clegg told RNZ that in PNG vaccine hesitancy had become vaccine phobia.

“The situation is dire, people are genuinely afraid of this vaccine … and a critical reason why people are afraid of the vaccine is because of misinformation.

“Misinformation is being spread around the country, and it really is preventing people from going and getting help, and going to the health centres and getting that very crucial vaccine.”

Clegg said that before the arrival of covid-19 previous campaigns to reduce vaccine hesitancy had been successful in the Pacific, and she was hopeful the same could be done again.

“We’ve seen it done in Samoa, which went from a very low vaccine rate with the measles, and now today there’s around 100 percent vaccine take-up in the country — so that’s really positive.

“We also know from a recent study done by the World Bank that when people are receiving accurate messages, and are receiving up-to-date information about the safety of vaccines that actually the general intention to get vaccines goes up by around 50 percent.”

Access to the vaccine in geographically isolated areas, and cultural, economic and educational factors were all contributing to many people missing out in PNG, Clegg said.

New Zealand recently sent a health team to PNG, but if more was not done to help the country, Clegg said “we could see the death rate spiral, the country’s health systems collapse, and even the spread of covid-19 beyond PNG.”

The Council for International Development said New Zealand should donate its spare vaccines to PNG, help provide reliable cell phone coverage so health workers and community leaders there could pass on vaccine information, and fund mobile clinics to provide vaccinations in remote areas.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz