Essay: Just 1.7 per cent of people in PNG are vaccinated against COVID. Why is resistance so fierce?
In an article first published on The Conversation, FRASER MACDONALD, a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, looks at what factors, including religious beliefs, are hampering Papua New Guinea’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout…
Essay: PNG and Fiji were both facing COVID catastrophes. Why has one vaccine rollout surged and the other stalled?
IAN KEMISH, a former Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea and now an adjunct professor at the The University of Queensland, looks – in an article first published on The Conversation – at how two Pacific nations have responded to the coronavirus pandemic…
Australia to stop controversial practice of asylum seeker detentions in PNG
Canberra, AustraliaReuters Australia will stop detaining asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea at the end of December, the two countries said on Wednesday, as Canberra shuts one of two remote Pacific detention centres that have been criticised by the United Nations. Under Australia’s hardline immigration policies, asylum seekers attempting to reach the country by boat […]
Australia considers diverting COVID-19 vaccines to PNG as “disaster” looms
Canberra, AustraliaReuters Australia is considering diverting COVID-19 inoculations from its vaccination program to Papua New Guinea where the coronavirus is threatening to unleash a humanitarian disaster, a government source said on Friday. PNG is due to get 588,000 doses of vaccine by June under the COVAX initiative to help poorer countries but doubts have arisen […]
Papua New Guinea orders restrictions as COVID-19 numbers climb
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Papua New Guinea will tighten internal border controls, restrict personal movement and enforce mask wearing in public from next week, as it confronts a steep rise in COVID-19 infections. The authorities in the Pacific island nation of nine million people also said they will ban mass gatherings, close schools and may order burials […]
COVID “tornado” hitting Papua New Guinea’s fragile hospitals, say health workers
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections in hospitals in the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea were hitting its fragile health system “like a tornado”, with services shutting as staff fall ill, health workers said on Wednesday. Australia said it would send 8,000 vaccines to its northern neighbour Papua New Guinea, responding to a […]
Updated: Australia urges EU to send one million COVID-19 vaccines for PNG amid fresh outbreak
Updated: 5:30pm (AEDT)Canberra, AustraliaReuters Australia said on Wednesday it will ask the European Union to release one million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to help Papua New Guinea battle a dangerous outbreak that authorities fear could spread to other parts of the region. The request could inflame existing tensions between Canberra and Brussels amid claims […]
Papua New Guinea faces coronavirus crisis as infections rise
Sydney, AustraliaReuters The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea is facing a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections around the capital Port Moresby, which neighbouring Australia and aid groups fear could overwhelm the country’s small and overstretched health system. The Pacific Friends of Global Health warned if health services are overwhelmed by COVID-19 the treatment […]
Papua New Guinea farewells “grand chief” at state funeral
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Papua New Guineans gathered in their thousands to pay respect to their “grand chief” at a state funeral on Friday for Michael Somare, the former Prime Minister who led the Pacific archipelago to independence. Somare died on 26th February, aged 84, just weeks after he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. He served […]
Two women named as cabinet ministers in a first for Bougainville
Thomson Reuters Foundation The new President of Bougainville, an autonomous part of Papua New Guinea, appointed two female cabinet ministers on Friday, a rare move in a region where women are often sidelined in politics. Papua New Guinea is one of only three countries worldwide to have no female lawmakers, though Bougainville has made some […]