In the final episode of Contain This this season, we are joined by Australia’s Ambassador for Global Health, Dr Lucas de Toca PSM, and the former Ambassador for Regional Health Security, Dr Stephanie Williams, to reflect on how Australia delivers assistance for health in our region and what they see as the key challenges and priorities. They discus…

In today’s episode of Contain This, we feature the Field Epidemiology in Action (FEiA) program, which trains field epidemiologists in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to strengthen outbreak detection and response through partnership and workforce development. The FEiA program, supported by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, is current…

The Australian Volunteers Program is an Australian Government-funded initiative that supports global volunteering across the Pacific, Asia, and Africa to achieve locally led change and the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this episode of Contain This, we bring you a story of how one Australian volunteer helped to support health …

Launched earlier this year, the sixth Global Health 50/50 report focussed for the first time on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the workplace ranging from menstruation, abortion and menopause, to antenatal care and caring responsibilities. Our guests on this episode are the founders of Global Health 50/50, Professor Sarah Hawkes…

"I want to know what to do when I get my first period and what changes to expect during puberty, so I feel prepared, assured and confident to manage them.” – Oky user Girls have important questions about their health, and often they don’t know where to turn to find trusted, culturally sensitive information about their menstrual, sexual and reproduc…

What are ‘bad medicines’? How do they make it onto our shelves? And what is being done to address substandard and falsified medicines in the Indo-Pacific? In this week’s episode, we delve into the ongoing problem of ‘bad medicines’, otherwise known as substandard and falsified medicines. Our guest is Dr. Paul Huleatt, strategic partnerships and pro…

Our guest this week is Sir Jeremy Farrar, the World Health Organization’s new Chief Scientist, who took up the role earlier this year. As Chief Scientist, Dr Farrar oversees WHO’s science division, bringing together the best brains in science and innovation from around the world. Prior to joining WHO, Dr Farrar was the director of the Wellcome Trus…

Our guest this week is Carolyn Reynolds, Co-founder of the Pandemic Action Network (PAN). In this episode we discuss how Carolyn’s involvement in the response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa led her to co-found PAN; and what PAN works to achieve, particularly in the lead up to the high-level meeting on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and resp…

Welcome to the second part of our insights from the Global Health Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Climate, Health and International Development Seminar. The seminar explored the impacts of climate change and health, its relevance to health policy and programming in the Australian aid program, and how to build climate adapt…

The Global Health Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently presented the second of its Health and Development Seminar Series: Climate Change, Health and International Development, supported by the Specialist Health Service (SHS). The seminar explored the impacts of climate change and health, its relevance to health policy an…

In this week’s episode, we bring you a panel discussion on how the vaccine champions programme has empowered community leaders to advocate for COVID-19 vaccines in Australia, Vietnam, and Fiji. You will hear from three vaccination experts and leaders who are all involved in an innovative behavioural change programme known as Vaccine Champions, whic…

Our guest this week is Dr James Kelley, Team Lead for Malaria and Vector-borne Diseases in the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Regional Office. In honour of World Malaria Day 2023, Dr Kelley describes the status of the epidemic globally and in the Indo-Pacific Region. We also discuss: Getting the Global Technical Strategy target of redu…

Our guest this week is Ms Hang Nguyen, the Vietnam Country Director for MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly Marie Stopes International. With almost 9000 staff working across 37 countries, MSI works to ensure that reproductive choice is possible through access to advice, contraception, and safe abortion. Hang has held the position of Vietnam Country …

In this second episode of our two-part series on disability and healthy equity, our guest this week is Villaney Remengesau, based in Palau, who is the co-chair of the Pacific Disability Forum. Lany is a dedicated advocate for disability rights and inclusion across the Pacific. She was recently awarded the Disability Pasifika Award – the highest awa…

Our guest this week is Dr Amelia Afuhaʻamango Tuʻipulotu, the World Health Organization’s new Chief Nursing Officer. Dr Amelia was the Kingdom of Tonga’s first female Minister for Health and the first Tongan to receive a Ph.D. in Nursing. Her previous roles also include Chief Nursing Officer of Tonga and Director of Nursing at Vaiola Hospital. Dr A…

Our guest this week is Darryl Barrett, technical lead for disability with the World Health Organization in Geneva, who joins us to discuss the WHO Global Report on Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities. The report was released in December 2022, 10 years after the publishing of the World Report on Disability in 2011. An estimated 1.3 billion p…

Our guest this week is Dr Sharon Salmon, technical officer for the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), hosted by the World Health Organization. GOARN is a network of over 250 technical institutions and networks globally that respond to acute public health events with the deployment of staff and resources to affected countries. Dr. S…

We are proud to present the 2022 Annual Ruth Bishop Address. Professor Ruth Bishop AC led a team of researchers to the landmark discovery of rotavirus in 1973, a major breakthrough in tackling one of the most significant causes of infant mortality worldwide. The team’s discovery kick-started the successful 30-year endeavour to develop a rotavirus v…

This week we continue our analysis of One Health, bringing you a discussion about how One Health approaches are being advanced in the Pacific with Dr Salanieta Taka Saketa. Dr Sala is a Senior Epidemiologist in the public health division of the Pacific community (SPC). We discuss how priorities vary in different Pacific country contexts, the applic…

From the seventh World One Health Congress held earlier this month in Singapore, we bring you this conversation with Dr Osman Dar and Dr Catherine Machalaba, both members of the One Health High-Level Expert Panel. In this episode, we explore what One Health is, approaches in practice, including addressing Nipah virus in Malaysia, how the value of O…

In this episode we’re joined by a panel of experts from the World Bank to discuss universal health coverage in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Panellists: Dr Toomas Palu, Adviser on Global Coordination at the World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice (Geneva, Switzerland) Dr Aparnaa Somanathan, Practice Manager for Health, Nutri…

This week’s guest is Dr Shubha Nagesh, a medical doctor and a public health physician in India. She is currently the chapter development manager for Asia Pacific and the Middle East at Women in Global Health, where her work focuses on gender transformative leadership. In this episode, we talk about the importance of gender equality to health securi…

Vaccine hesitancy has been a particular challenge for governments and health teams around the world as COVID-19 vaccines have been rolled out. In Papua New Guinea, a country still seeking to embed a system of routine childhood vaccinations, the rollout presented a challenge for the health workforce. Our guest this week is Mr Api Kassman, Executive …

Last month at the Global Health Security Conference in Singapore, Policy Cures Research launched their second edition of the Landscape of Emerging Infectious Disease Research and Development funding report, supported by the Australian Government. Our guest this week is Dr Paul Barnsley, Senior Analyst at Policy Cures Research, and the lead author o…

As the global health community continues to examine how prepared we were for a pandemic, this week’s episode asks – how can we move the conversation forward to future resilience, and what systems can be put in place to ensure we can withstand future pandemics? Our guest this week is Professor Mika Salminen, the Director of Health Security at the Fi…

As we move from COVID-19 as a pandemic, to COVID-19 as a virus, this week’s episode asks – what did we learn about pandemic response as a global health community? In particular, what did we learn about applying a global health response in middle- and low-economically developed countries? And what can we do better next time? Our guests this week are…

The Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security has begun a series of roundtables across the country on Future Funding Priorities. At the recent roundtable in Melbourne Robin Davies, First Assistant Secretary of the Global Health Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Head of the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, spoke to Pr…

Australian Ambassador for Regional Health Security, Stephanie Williams, is back on the road to meet with Australia’s partners in the region and learn about how they have fared during the pandemic. On today’s episode, Ambassador Williams speaks to Armandina Gusmao Amaral, the Program Director at the Partnership for Human Development. Mana Dina is a …

Today’s episode features Professor Allen Cheng, the Director of the Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology unit at Alfred Health, Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at Monash University and the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines to the Therapeutic Goods Administration and an infectious diseases physician. He is also kn…

World Health Day this Thursday, 7 April will focus global attention on urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being. After two years of a global pandemic, it’s a time to reflect on the fact that the health of our planet and the health of our people are inextricably conne…

This Thursday, 24 March is World Tuberculosis Day. An estimated 9.9 million people fell ill with TB in 2020 and 1.5 million people died from the disease. TB continues to be a blight in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Papua New Guinea bears the largest burden of…

The theme for International Women's Day 2022 is "Gender equality today for a sustainable world tomorrow." Women and girls in the Indo-Pacific region are at the forefront of dealing with the effects of climate affected disasters – from natural disasters to pandemics. They are also leading the charge on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptat…

At the centre of the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a set of public health obligations called the International Health Regulations (IHR). The IHR is a legally-binding instrument designed to help the international community prevent and respond to acute public health risks that have the potential to cross borders and threaten peo…

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, not many Australians could tell you who the state’s Chief Health Officer was. In this episode we talk to Professor Brett Sutton, the Chief Health Officer of Victoria, who in the last two years has become one of the most recognisable figures in Australian public health. We ask Professor Sutton about how the Victorian …

One thing we know about the COVID-19 pandemic is that not one state or organisation was adequately prepared for a health crisis of this scale. So, what have we learnt in the last two years about pandemic preparedness? How can states and global health organisations put in place the capacities to respond quickly to a fast-moving threat, and to cooper…

The latest episode in our Indo-Pacific Health Leaders series features Dr Karma Lhazeen, Director of the Department of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Bhutan in conversation with Ambassador Stephanie Williams. Dr Lhazeen is a tropical medicine specialist, working as a malaria control program manger before becoming chief …

Welcome to Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, an initiative of the Australian Government housed at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We are proud to present our Annual Ruth Bishop Lecture, with Dr Sarthak Das APLMA. Dr Sarthak Das is the Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria…

Welcome to Contain This brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Center for Health Security, an initiative of the Australian Government housed at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Today's episode is hosted by Francette Dusan, Senior Advisor at the Center. In today's episode, Francette speaks to Dr. Ari Probandari and Dr. Virginia Wiseman, from…

Welcome to Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, an initiative of the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As we mark World AIDS Day on December 1, we bring you the story of one of our projects. The ACTUP-PNG project is founded on a long-term partnership with affected communities. I…

Welcome to Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, an initiative of the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This episode is hosted by Francette Dusan, Senior Advisor at the Centre. In today's episode, Francette speaks to members of the WISH Fiji Project Team. She is joined by the Chi…

Welcome to Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, an initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This episode is hosted by Francette Dusan, Senior Advisor at the Centre. In today’s episode, we speak to Dr Thu Anh Nguyen. Dr Thu Anh Nguyen is an infectious diseases and public health res…

SARS has a mortality rate of 20-30 times of COVID. For the next pandemic what will we do? Head of the Centre Robin Davies talks with Richard Hatchett from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) about the work they are doing with the support of Australia and other countries to invest in research, production and distribution of va…

“Preparedness is always better than response.” Indonesia is currently suffering another wave of COVID-19, in addition to 10 other major infectious diseases. In this episode we talk with Eka Wulan Cahyasari from the Indonesian Red Cross Society about how, with the support of the Centre, they are drawing upon existing pandemic preparedness tools and …

How can we build community resilience in the face of both natural and man-made disasters that impact on our water and sanitation systems, our environment, and some of the world’s deadliest waterbourne diseases? Community-led watershed interventions can both reduce water-related disease risks and improve downstream ecosystem conditions supporting th…

Welcome back to Contain This. This is Episode 3, Season 2, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. Today, we bring you an Indo-Pacific Health Leaders interview hosted by Australian Ambassador for Regional Health Security, Dr Stephanie Williams. Indonesia, a close neighbor of Australia has been hit hard with COVID-19 since the…

Welcome back to Contain This. This is Episode 2, Season 2, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. Today we bring you an Indo-Pacific Health Leaders interview hosted by Australian Ambassador for Regional Health Security, Dr Stephanie Williams, that looks at the global effort to fight Covid-19 whilst not losing any of the prog…

Welcome to Season 2 of Contain This and Episode 29. This week we discuss an essential step in the journey of the COVID-19 vaccine. We bring you insights on how the experts at Papua New Guinea’s Pharmaceutical Services Standards Branch were supported to assess the safety and efficacy of COVUD-19 vaccines in the last few months prior to the first dos…

Welcome to Episode 28 of Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. This week we bring you insights on the World Mosquito Program's Wolbachia method as a means of helping communities around the world prevent the spread of mosquito borne-disease. In this episode we were delighted to speak with Professor Scott O'Neil…

Welcome to Episode 27 of Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. This week we bring you a special episode on the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in the Pacific Region, brought to you by two podcasts - Contain This, and Vosa, supported by the World Bank in the Pacific and Papua New Guinea. This episode is hosted by regu…

Welcome to Episode 26 of Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. This week, we're bringing you insights from the introduction of COVID-19 Vaccines, how they were developed, what it means for vaccines to be safe, and how they will be rolled out in the South Pacific and in particular, Fiji. In this episode, we wer…