Low Covid-19 vaccination rates across the Pacific are, according to epidemiologists, not just concerning for individual countries but also globally because new variants of the virus tend to emerge from countries with large populations and low vaccination rates.
Papua New Guinea is the closest fit to this description in the region.
It has an estimated population of 8-9million and one of the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world - with only 3-percent of its citizens fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Health authorities in the country already facing huge logistical problems in their vaccination rollout have been further hampered by the spread of misinformation resulting in extremely high levels of vaccine hesitancy, with many doses of the vaccine acquired by the country expiring and having to be dumped.
Eleisha Foon spoke with New Zealand epidemiologist Michael Baker about vaccine inequity and the possibility of countries in the Pacific being the source of a new COVID variant.
Patients are treated at a makeshift Covid-19 hospital in Port Moresby on October 9, 2021. Photo: AFP or licensors
