A New Zealand medical and logistics support team with essential supplies to assist Papua New Guinea with its covid-19 crisis has departed New Zealand.

Associate Foreign Minister Aupito William Sio said the PNG government had formally requested humanitarian and medical support from partner governments to respond to the health crisis, with rising case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths due to the current delta surge.

As of November 9, PNG has recorded 415 covid-19 deaths with local media reporting the health system is unable to cope with the medical crisis.

• READ MORE: The PNG covid crisis

Aupito said New Zealand was deeply saddened by the increasing loss of lives in Papua New Guinea due to the pandemic.

“New Zealand remains committed to supporting its Pacific neighbours to respond to the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic,” the minister said.

“By working closely with our partners in the region, we can make a tangible contribution to covid-19 resilience,” Aupito said.

A logistics component comprising two NZ Defence Force logisticians and a NZ Defence Force Environmental Health Officer will support the PNG National Control Centre in the capital, Port Moresby.

A clinical component comprising two doctors and three nurses from private company Respond Global, two Fire and Emergency NZ logisticians and a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will be based in Bougainville to support the Bougainville Department of Health.

“Most of the team departed Saturday morning on a New Zealand Defence Force aircraft and will be based in Papua New Guinea for approximately one month,” Aupito William Sio said.

There are already medical teams on the ground from Australia and Britain assisting Papua New Guinea with the medical crisis.

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

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama has urged his people not to take a surge in covid-19 positive cases lightly, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

He said the pandemic had reached a large proportion globally — and even locally in Papua New Guinea where the seriousness of the crisis was shown by an alarming number of deaths and reported positive cases.

Toroama said the measures being instituted by the government were not to subdue individual rights to freedom of movement and the freedom to health care, they were a protective measure to protect lives.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

“Under the new normal initiative, we must contain covid-19 and mitigate its spread throughout the region. We must work together to manage it,” he said.

Toroama also said vaccination was voluntary and no one would be forced to take it.

“However, those who opt not to receive the vaccine must not impede the rights of those who are willing to take it — everyone is entitled to healthcare in the region,” he said.

“No one must impose on the rights of the ones who want access to it.

Covid protocols apply
“For the Autonomous Bougainville Government, we do not have a ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy but covid-19 protocols still apply in the workplace environment.

“The 14-day lockdown imposed by the covid-19 response team is a direct response to the recent surge of covid-19 cases that we have in the region.”

He said the steps taken by the Pandemic Controller and Secretary of Health Clement Totavun were necessary to “keep our people safe”.

“I urge all to support the Covid-19 Response Team’s efforts to curb the spread of the virus and adhere to the measures imposed.”

He said the simple action of adhering to these measures would help protect the lives of “countless Bougainvilleans”.

• According to the John Hopkins University covid dashboard, Papua New Guinea has 32,279 cases of infection and 415 deaths from covid-19. Health officials believe this is an under-estimate and less than 2 percent of the population are vaccinated.
  

Republished with permission.

Only 1.7 percent of Papua New Guineans have been fully vaccinated against covid-19. This has been a cause of concern for the international community, who are watching the virus spread through an exposed population with high rates of co-morbidities and minimal access to healthcare.

The mood within the country, however, is very different. No doubt there is abundant fear, but this has centred on the vaccine itself.

Many Papua New Guineans have access to the vaccine, even in some of the remotest corners of the country. They are also fully familiar with injected medicines and vaccinations against diseases like polio and measles.

• READ MORE: No, the COVID-19 vaccine is not linked to the mark of the beast – but a first-century Roman tyrant probably is
• PNG and Fiji were both facing covid catastrophes. Why has one vaccine rollout surged and the other stalled?
• The Pacific went a year without covid. Now, it’s all under threat

But millions of Papua New Guineans are not getting vaccinated against covid because they are terrified of this specific vaccine. This is not “vaccine hesitancy”, but full-blown opposition, a genuine antipathy.

Community vaccine rollouts have been targeted with death threats, attacked by furious crowds, and castigated as a “campaign of terror”.

The recently introduced “no jab, no job” policy, meanwhile, has met with lawsuits, mass resignations and the fraudulent acquisition of vaccination certificates to circumvent the dreaded vaccine.

So, why is there such a fierce resistance to the covid vaccine? The key difference, as any good anthropologist will tell you, is cultural context.

Spiritual sickness
Any attempt to understand local views on the covid vaccine must first appreciate that, within Melanesian societies, physicality is intimately connected to morality and spirituality. Because of this, biomedical explanations for disease are usually secondary to other causes or irrelevant.

My uncle died in my arms today. Please get your family vaccinated against COVID. Don’t listen to the anti vexers, everytime you do you are putting your loved ones and family at risk. #png #COVID#COVID19https://t.co/iFxqAa0u4c

— Sachum.A.Wapa (@alexwapa) November 2, 2021

This is mainly due to the small, sometimes non-existent role played by government education in the lives of most Papua New Guineans, especially the roughly 80 percent that live in rural villages.

For example, should an otherwise healthy person suddenly become ill and die, sorcery or witchcraft may be deemed the cause. Accusations are linked to interpersonal conflicts and jealousies that may have precipitated the mystical assault.

Such interpretations usually occur with individual misfortunes — not much larger events like a global pandemic. This is where Christianity becomes hugely important, making sense of broader problems like this.

World Bank concerned about vaccine hesitancy, PNG treasurer says https://t.co/IsMBMhBs3u pic.twitter.com/ZGdLP2zMlD

— PNG Today (@PNGNEWSTODAY) November 1, 2021

The role of Christianity
Nearly all Papua New Guineans (99.2%) are Christian. And the religious landscape in the country is powerfully influenced by Pentecostal and evangelical churches.

In PNG, Christianity provides not only the promise of eternal salvation, but biblically inscribed frameworks and prophetic ideas that inform how people live and view the world around them.

Many Christians, especially those believing in the Pentecostal and evangelical traditions, have a strong interest in the end of the world, as this signals the return of Jesus Christ.

Crucially, the imminent return of Christ is heralded by the world’s rapid moral decline and humanity being branded with the mark of the beast — a process mandated by Satan. As such, many Papua New Guinea Christians continuously and fearfully scan the horizon for this definitive sign.

Years ago, some Papua New Guinean friends declared barcodes were the mark. More recently, they insisted it was the government’s national ID card initiative.

Now, in a completely different order of magnitude and intensity, it is the covid vaccine.

As one group protesting a vaccine drive recently chanted, “Karim 666 chip goh!”, or “Get out of here with Satan’s microchip”.

From this perspective, the vaccine is a vehicle for much larger forces of global and cosmic tyranny. The speed with which the vaccine was developed, its global reach, and the apparent coercion of vaccine mandates all further strengthen suspicions of its evil origins.

However, Christianity is not the sole factor spurring anti-vaccination sentiment. Indeed, powerful misinformation on social media has also been influential, such as rumours the vaccine carries a microchip or commonly causes death. People also have a well-founded distrust of outsiders, and they view both the virus and vaccine as foreign assaults on PNG’s sovereignty.

In the absence of Western biomedical knowledge or a lack of faith in its validity, these theories flourish. Those with more sustained exposure to Western culture often try in vain to convince their compatriots against this kind of thinking.

Alternative treatments
While defiantly resisting vaccination, many Papua New Guineans nonetheless acknowledge covid-19 is real and that it causes sickness.

With infection rates, hospital admissions, and deaths now surging, it would be hard to ignore this reality. The rising covid-19 mortality across the country has scared some into receiving the vaccine, but even those open to vaccination are easily spooked by rumours of subsequent death.

In the absence of vaccinations, Papua New Guineans have turned to three main methods of treatment: prayer and healing, organic remedies, and reliance on a claimed strong natural immunity to disease.

As Christians strongly influenced by the evangelical and Pentecostal traditions, many people pray to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to not just mitigate, but annihilate, the evil sickness.

In addition, many are turning to organic traditional remedies to ward off illness. This mainly consists of spices and leaves used in drinks and steaming.

Finally, there is a strongly held belief that Papua New Guineans possess an intrinsically strong immune system, buttressed by a diet of garden food, which makes them more resistant to the incursion of the covid virus.

What can the authorities do?
For most Westerners, vaccines are an obvious and intrinsic good. For many Papua New Guineans, vaccines are a dangerous, unknown, and sinister threat. This is due to a combination of forces – governmental neglect, strong religiosity, and a justified distrust of outsiders.

This local position needs to be very sensitively understood and respected, not dismissed or criticised.

At the same time, deaths must be prevented and the thick fog of opposition surrounding the vaccine must be dissipated. But how?

Detailed information about the vaccine, including its creation, contents, efficacy, and potential side effects, must be made fully known to people before asking them to be vaccinated. Insisting a population with minimal information be vaccinated is not ethical or fair.

Likely in response to the widespread apocalyptic interpretations of the vaccine, the PNG Council of Churches is now actively promoting its safety and benefits. The government also needs to step up its efforts and commit to a nationwide educational campaign if hopes for substantial vaccine uptake are ever to be realised.

The success of the whole endeavour — and steering Papua New Guinea away from a public health catastrophe — will likely turn on persuading ordinary people the vaccine is a divine blessing and not a Satanic curse.

Dr Fraser Macdonald is a senior lecturer in anthropology, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Employees of the National Capital District Commission (NCDC) have challenged the legality of the “no jab, no job” policy imposed by NCDC on Port Moresby with a lawsuit.

Lawyer George Kaore, representing the NCDC Workers Association, appeared before Deputy Chief Justice Ambeng Kandakasi to seek certain interim orders at the National Court in Waigani.

City manager Bernard Kipit, Governor Powes Parkop and NCDC were named as defendants in the case.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid pandemic reports

Kaore said the NCDC employees filed the case for the court to enforce the rights of the workers pursuant to section 41 of the Constitution (Prescribed Acts) and section 48 of the Constitution (Freedom of Employment).

He said the covid-19 vaccination should not be mandatory in the workplace.

However, Justice Kandakasi advised Kaore to provide to the court a list of NCDC workers who were vaccinated and those who were not vaccinated.

Justice Kandakasi also told Kaore to provide a list of the non-vaccinated NCDC staff who had taken a covid-19 test.

‘Basic information’ not provided
Justice Kandakasi said such basic information was not provided by the plaintiffs to the court.

After considering submissions from the parties, he ordered the National Executive Council (NEC), Health Minister Jelta Wong, and the National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning to be added as defendants to the case.

The court ordered the government through NEC, Wong and Manning to provide a copy of the National Covid-19 Pandemic Response plan, the strategic implementation plan and all relevant details about the covid-19 awareness, contact tracing and isolation.

Justice Kandakasi said the case by the NCDC Workers Association would be heard together with the case filed by the Human Rights Advocacy International.

The Human Rights Advocacy International filed the case in the National Court claiming that the “no jab, no job” policy implemented by some government agencies, private companies and public statutory institutions was unconstitutional.

The case has been adjourned to November 16.

Charles Moi is a reporter for The National newspaper. Republished with permission.

Urban clinics in Papua New Guinea’s second city Lae have closed for an indefinite period following attacks on health workers.

Anti-vaxxers have been verbally or physically attacking health workers over false claims of state mandatory vaccinations against the covid-19 pandemic.

Health workers and support staff manning facilities around the city have reported incidents of stone throwing, swearing and threats to their personal safety, with some people viewing them as “agents of a forced covid-19 vaccine”.

• READ MORE: Ambulance attacks depored in PNG
• PNG police block illegal anti-vaxxer rally in Port Moresby amid fake info
• More PNG pandemic reports

The National reported at the weekend on an attack on a three-member ambulance crew by people last Thursday wrongly believing St John Ambulance staff were administering vaccines.

A surge in covid misinformation and disinformation on social media is hampering health authorities in their work.

While the Morobe Provincial Health Authority is yet to advise residents about the crisis, health workers say nobody is manning the clinics as they have all been asked to stay at home until further notice.

A visit to the Malahang and Butibam clinics revealed that similar notices were posted saying: “Haus sik bai pas inap ol bosman/bosmeri i tok orait lo open gen”. (Hospital will close until approval is received from bosses.)

The next option for residents is to go to the overcrowded ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital or visit private clinics and pharmacies.

Barely 1 percent vaccinated
Asia Pacific Report reports only 1.2 percent of the nine million Papua New Guineans are vaccinated against covid-19.

According to the John Hopkins University covid dashboard, 29,715 cases of covid and 370 deaths have been reported on Papua New Guinea but health officials fear the real toll is far higher because of limited testing and records.

John Hopkins has reported that the total death toll from covid-19 has now passed five million globally.

Demonstrators gathered in Port Moresby yesterday for a march to Parliament in protest over the covid-19 vaccines, which they claimed wrongly to be mandatory, a day after Papua New Guinean police warned such gatherings were illegal.

The protest was a result of a post circulating on social media about a “peaceful protest march” planned for the day against mandatory vaccination.

Despite assurances from Controller of the Pandemic Response and Police Commissioner David Manning that the notice circulated was false and misleading because vaccination was not mandatory and still remained a personal choice, the protesters gathered for the rally.

• READ MORE: Global covid-19 death toll tops five million
• Other PNG covid reports

The anti-vaccine crowd disobeyed advice from the police to disperse. Instead, they took to the Gordon bus stop, gained momentum from others who joined them and attempted to march through a residential street towards the Wardstrip Primary School and on to Parliament.

However, police thwarted their their attempts by blocked the route and spoke to the crowd who disregarded social distancing and masks.

The NCD/Central Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Anthony Wagambie Jnr, addressed the crowd. He said their concerns had already been heard.

It was not clear who the organisers of the march were.

Endangering public safety
ACP Wagambie explained that the march had to be stopped by police to prevent disorder stemmed that would endanger the safety of others in Port Moresby.

The anti-vaxxers carried a banner with messages condemning “666” and “artificial intelligence”.

Misinformation about the covid-19 vaccines is currently swamping genuine information available to Papua New Guineans and is allowing fear and confusion to gain momentum.

Asia Pacific Report reports only 1.2 percent of the nine million Papua New Guineans are vaccinated against covid-19.

According to the John Hopkins University covid dashboard, 29,715 cases of covid and 370 deaths have been reported on Papua New Guinea but health officials fear the real toll is far higher because of limited testing and records.

John Hopkins has reported that the total death toll from covid-19 has now passed five million globally.

Marysilla Kellerton is a Loop PNG reporter.