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Some Pacific countries will have less than a quarter of their adults vaccinated by the end of the year, with papua new guinea It will take the country five years to vaccinate a third of its population, which will undermine the region’s economic recovery and threaten massive loss of life in the region.
The predictions come from a Lowy Institute model released on Sunday, which takes into account factors such as vaccine access, health care worker numbers, urbanisation, topography and vaccine hesitancy to estimate when Pacific nations will reach key vaccination milestones.
The modelling reveals a divided region. Papua New Guinea, in the midst of a devastating delta outbreak, has vaccinated about 3% of its adult population.
The Solomon Islands expects only 23% of its adult population to be fully vaccinated by the end of the year, while Vanuatu expects only 29% of its adult population to be fully vaccinated.
“I was a bit shocked to see what’s happening in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia,” said Alexandre Dayant, the model’s lead author. “According to our model, Papua New Guinea will not have more than 36% of its adult population vaccinated by August 2026. That’s very concerning. It raises a big question: What will happen to countries in the future that are not fully vaccinated? Will they become pariahs of this world?”
However, with the support of partner countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand, many small Pacific countries achieved almost 100% vaccination coverage a few months ago.
Palau, located in the North Pacific, has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with more than 99% of its adult population fully vaccinated. The country of nearly 2 million people is currently rolling out booster shots.
Similarly, Nauru, Niue, the Cook Islands and Tuvalu are close to 100% vaccination of their adult populations.
The study also looked at vaccine deliveries to the region from donor countries. Australia has pledged 11.4 million doses, or 66% of the region’s supply, while Covax has pledged 4.5 million doses, followed by New Zealand, China, the United States and India.
“The problem is not vaccine supply, it’s vaccine demand,” Dayant said. “One of the biggest reasons for vaccine hesitancy is misinformation.
“In the Pacific, misinformation is spreading much faster than the virus. A big problem in the Pacific is that social media is the main source of information … and that’s undermining the international community’s efforts to get vaccines into people’s bodies.”
However, Dayant said publicity in Australia about the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and the fact that a large number of vaccines were donated to Papua New Guinea despite Australian health officials warning against its use in people under 60, had undermined the Pacific nation’s confidence in the vaccine.
“Some of them said: ‘Wait, if it’s not good enough for the Australian people, why should we accept it?'”
Many Pacific nations have remained largely disease-free by closing their borders to international travellers throughout the pandemic, inflicting huge economic losses on tourism-reliant economies.
Fiji, one of the largest and most developed countries in the Pacific, was hit by a very serious Delta outbreak in mid-2021, with more than 50,000 cases and nearly 700 deaths in a country with a population of less than 1 million.
Just 8% of Fiji’s adults were fully vaccinated when the pandemic hit in June 2021, but an ambitious vaccine rollout and a controversial “no jab, no work” policy have sent vaccination rates soaring. As of Friday, 90% of Fiji’s adults were fully vaccinated, and more than 97% had received at least one dose. The country plans to reopen for quarantine-free travel In December, it will be opened to tourists from some countries, including Australia.
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