Our partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) is addressing the chronic shortage of qualified animal health workers across the Pacific and Timor-Leste. Together, we are working towards the regional goal of a paraveterinary workforce that is adequately and sustainably trained to support local livestock productivity and regional biosecurity. 

The Asia Pacific Consortium of Veterinary Epidemiology (APCOVE) was established in 2020 to build veterinary epidemiology capacity across the Asia Pacific region. Led by the University of Sydney, APCOVE brings together over 50 animal health experts from all veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand, and eight partner countries: Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.

This project was developed in response to an identified need within the Pacific to increase diagnostic capacity for animal and zoonotic diseases. The establishment of a Pacific Laboratory Network, including reference laboratories in Australia and New Zealand, will ensure regional coordination, consistent diagnostic approaches, and timely support for animal disease investigations.

This project aims to support laboratory placements and leadership within the Southeast Asian and Pacific region with a focus on Vietnam, in particular Regional Animal Health Office 6 (RAHO6) in HCMC and the National Centre for Veterinary Diagnosis in Hanoi.

This project aims to strengthen national field-to-laboratory capacities and strengthen regional networks for viromics-based emerging infectious disease (EID) surveillance at the wildlife interface. 

This project will provide targeted training of laboratory leaders in biorisk management and development of a community of biorisk practitioners in the region.

Australia’s partnership with CBM Australia seeks to enhance mental health and psychosocial services, empower individuals with psychosocial disabilities, and foster resilient communities in Fiji and the Philippines. The initiative is achieving its goals by promoting effective rights-based models of care to ensure access to quality mental health services. This includes addressing community inclusion by fostering acceptance and support for the recovery of persons with psychosocial disabilities.

Australia, through The George Institute for Global Health, is implementing a comprehensive program that will strengthen the provision of high quality and equitable prevention, screening and management services for diabetes and hypertension within primary health care systems in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

Australia is supporting The Kids Research Institute Australia (a University of Western Australia affiliate) and its partners in unifying two decades of work on rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the Pacific Region. The initiative introduces a new mechanism to grow and expand Pacific health leadership through the Fiji-based Pacific RHD Knowledge Hub. The Hub signifies a new era of coordinated, sustainable and impactful activity, addressing urgent unmet health needs in our region.

Our partnership with Australian Red Cross (ARC) is strengthening community capacity to prepare for and respond to epidemic disease threats in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. ARC and its partners, Fiji Red Cross, Solomon Islands Red Cross and Vanuatu Red Cross, will work with communities to increase knowledge and skills on epidemic disease awareness-raising, prevention and control, thereby improving disease surveillance and enhancing and extending national surveillance systems.