Papua New Guinea (PNG) outbreak of Covid-19 vaccination campaign

Misinformation on social media hinders Papua New Guinea’s vaccination efforts.

Many people are hesitant about inoculation because false information about vaccines is spreading, even when coronavirus cases increase, according to PNG’s Covid-19 response controller.

The country reported 1,730 cases and 12 deaths between March 29 and April 4, according to a joint report by the World Health Organization and the PNG national health department.

Cases of infection rose again in February, and PNG has reported 7,839 cases so far, according to Johns Hopkins University. However, the consensus is that the real number is much higher, hidden by low testing capacity and other logistical difficulties.

“We were lured into a kind of sense of satisfaction, the false sense of security that I gained during the first wave, which I feared,” David Manning, national pandemic response controller, told Will Koulouris to Covid-19 to PNG.

Located in northern Australia, Papua New Guinea is a heavily forested island country with a population of less than 9 million people.

The National Capital District, which hosts the PNG capital, Port Moresby, has the highest number of reported cases, followed by the Western Province, where the infection rate is also rising.

A combination of events – funerals, holidays and the resumption of schooling – led to the “continuous transmission of the virus,” William Pomat, director of the PNG Medical Research Institute, told CNBC last week.

The so-called “vaccine nationalism” has made it difficult for small, developing nations, such as the PNG, to gain access to inoculate their populations. Many of them are based on an international vaccination initiative called Covax, but the program’s vaccine offer is facing delays from India, which is also struggling to contain an increase in cases at home.

PNG last week launched a vaccination campaign using about 8,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 photos, which were donated by neighboring Australia. More doses in China and India are expected in the coming weeks.

The island nation has so far vaccinated less than 600 people, which led to it long ago, according to Manning.

“Of course, this is attributed to the vaccine’s hesitation and you can attribute it to the lack of awareness – basically, information around if there are side effects of the vaccine and the fake news spreading through social media,” he said, adding that there is relatively more little push from vaccine skeptics in urban areas.

Manning said Facebook contacted PNG, asking how the social network could help dispel some of the widespread misinformation, but did not expand on the details of that conversation.

Facebook launched a public education campaign in PNG this week to help users learn how to identify and combat health misinformation. It will run for five weeks and will include graphics and videos in multiple languages.

“For this campaign, we are continuing our efforts to target Covid-19 and vaccine-related misinformation, ensuring that Papua New Guinea is able to examine what it sees against official public health resources,” said Mia Garlick, director of policy. for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday.

“This campaign also adds to a prompt we launched last week in Papua New Guinea.
provide local users with Covid-19 prevention tips, ”Garlick added.

The outbreak puts excessive stress on PNG’s already weak health infrastructure.

International organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have warned of an imminent collapse. Many medical workers, who are already few in number, get Covid-19, experts said.

“If they get sick, then we won’t have anyone standing – not only for Covid, but for other diseases and so on,” said Pomat of the Institute for Medical Research.

He explained that Covid testing is done only for those who “could appear (the) a health unit when it shows symptoms and those who volunteer to enter. “

Even then, hospitals and medical units remain without the necessary components to perform these tests.

While PNG is working with its development partners, including Australia, to secure supplies of more kits and test components, it has also implemented stricter social restrictions. For example, shops have been asked to deny access to people who do not wear masks, while interprovincial travel is strictly regulated.

Manning said the pandemic response needs to be tailored to PNG’s coastal communities as well as the mountainous region, where even in the best of times, it is difficult to provide health, police or government services.

“So we have now shifted our focus from a national response to a provincial response and to work closely with those provincial health authorities that are currently flooded with surges, “he said.