I am currently a tuberculosis (TB) researcher at the Center for Tropical Medicine at the University of Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, as well as the coordinator for Innovation and Development department of the Indonesian Tuberculosis Researchers Network.
Merita Monteiro is part of the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security's STRONG TL project, which is designed to strengthen communicable disease surveillance and control in Timor-Leste.
Access to clean drinking water is critical to public health. Natural disasters such as cyclones and flooding often reduce the quality of drinking water so our Watershed Interventions for Systems Health in Fiji (WISH Fiji) project has acted quickly after recent tropical cyclones. Instances of heavy rain and resulting flooding can cause contamination of water from livestock waste, human sewage, chemicals and harmful contents of soil runoff.
The Health Security Initiative for the Indo-Pacific is supporting a whole-of-system approach to ensure new products get to those who need them.
A mid-term review of the Centre's support for Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) was recently completed. The review found continued evidence that the PDP model represents value for money.
Rapid and accurate diagnostic testing for the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is central to controlling the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic has placed an unprecedented global demand on laboratory supplies. There are critical shortages of some of these supplies, particularly COVID-19 testing cartridges for the Cepheid GeneXpert® testing platform.
My new role is working part time as a project officer, with the Pacific Paravet Training Project. I chose to be in this role because coming from Papua New Guinea where there is a current shortage of veterinarians, I recognise the role para-veterinarians and animal health officers play in delivering animal health services in communities, especially in terms of biosecurity and livestock disease and production.
Joint media release
Kiribati Ministry of Health, along with help from an Australian infection prevention control (IPC) adviser were able to trial new training and processes during an outbreak of measles, a fortuitous test run ahead of preparing for potential COVID-19 outbreaks in the Pacific nation. Following a review of their health security needs in 2017, the Kiribati Government requested support to strengthen infection prevention and control (IPC) in their health facilities. The island nation of 110,000 people has four hospitals, 37 health centres and 72 clinics.
Australia is working with nurses in the Pacific region to better prepare them to face the coming COVID-19 health challenges.
After seeing how other countries adapted their health workforce to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pacific nursing leaders identified that some nurses would be required to retrain so that they could fill critical care positions.
Australia will provide $80 million to the COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) to improve access to safe, effective and affordable COVID-19 vaccines for 92 countries in our region and around the world.
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