scholarly journals Diversity of epidemiological transition in the Pacific: Findings from the application of verbal autopsy in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 100150
Author(s):  
John D Hart ◽  
PKB Mahesh ◽  
Viola Kwa ◽  
Matthew Reeve ◽  
Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury ◽  
...  
1982 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward P. Wolfers

Law librarians whose work requires them to obtain and stock materials on the Pacific islands face some problems which seem worthy of special comment. These problems are essentially of two kinds—problems which are inherent in the nature of Pacific islands legal systems; andproblems involved in obtaining relevant information.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Heather Devere ◽  
Courtney Wilson

The Fourth Estate role of the media in a democracy is to inform its citizens and to be a forum for debate about political issues so that the citizenry is able to make informed decisions about the role its government plays. New Zealand portrays itself as a leading democracy in the Pacific, but how much do New Zealanders know about what is happening among the country’s neighbours? This article is an exploratory study on media coverage of four countries in Melanesia which have experienced conflict to assess the degree to which a peace/conflict journalism approach as opposed to a war/violence journalism approach is used. A content analysis of Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report programme was conducted between June and July 2012 to assess the reporting on the four Melanesian countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. According to Pilger (2011) war journalism is reporting on what those in power say they do, whereas peace journalism is what those in power actually do. Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) state that peace journalism ‘is when editors and reporters make choices—of what stories to report and how to report them—that create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict’ (p. 5). The framing of New Zealand media reporting as either war journalism or peace journalism will be an indication of how information about conflict in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu is presented to a New Zealand audience.


1970 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Leckie

While recently on the island of Pohnpei in the South Pacific, I made enquires about labour relations there and was repeatedly infoxmed that there are none! The same answer might be given for several of the island states within the South Pacific but this would overlook that even if formal industrial relations Channels are weakly established, employment and labour relations issues are by no means absent from the Pacific Islands. This special issue developed from a perceived lack of analysis and infotmation about the background of and current trends in labour relations in the South Pacific. The countries represented here are selective. This reflects the selectivity of research in the Pacific, particularly in the field of industrial relations. The nations chosen are of special relevance to New Zealand and Australia and those with the most developed industrial relations structures (Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) are included. Papua New Guinea and Fiji also have the biggest workforces in the region. In contrast, industrial Jielations in a small micro-state, Kiribati, are also analysed. It is regrettable that only one Polynesian country, Western Samoa, is discussed but this reflects the restricted role or absence (e.g., in Tonga) of fotrnal industrial relations in much of Polynesia. The papers also have not generally tackled their subjects from an employers' perspective, again an area of resean;h which has been virtually ignored in the South Pacific.


Author(s):  
Isiaka Alani Badmus

This paper examined conflicts and regional security in the Pacific. The paper has as its focus the roles of Australia and New Zealand (and the Pacific Islands Forum) in managing security in the Pacific using Papua New Guinea (Bougainville) and the Solomon Islands as case studies. It documented their peacekeeping experiences, and interrogated whether these operations were successes or not and why. Furthermore, the author explored whether the peacekeeping experiences in the Pacific and lessons learnt from these operations might be applicable to, and/or be helpful in developing a useful peacekeeping model for other regions. The argument of this paper is that, although Australia and New Zealand regional security management role is based on security concerns of the region but the national interests of these dominant states are also at play and a key factor that shape the nature and direction of interventions. As well, the dynamics of these operations have revolved around interaction between and among local, regional and global political factors. The author argued that peacekeeping in the Pacific (especially in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands) may not offer an appropriate peacekeeping model in such-conflict ridden settings as Africa where armed violence are more complex, protracted and involve full-scale military actions as opposed to low-intensity and localised conflicts in the Pacific, but some of the peacekeeping lessons from the region may be helpful to other peace operations, especially Peacekeeping the 'Pacific Way'.     


Phytotaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 479 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82
Author(s):  
HUI SHANG ◽  
ZHEN-LONG LIANG ◽  
LI-BING ZHANG

A taxonomic revision of Didymochlaena (Didymochlaenaceae) from Asia and the Pacific region is conducted based on morphological and molecular evidence. Seven species are recognized, of which four are described as new and a new status is raised to a species from a variety. These four new species include D. fijiensis from Fiji, D. philippensis from the Philippines, D. punctata from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, and D. solomonensis from the Solomon Islands. The new status is D. oceanica from Papua New Guinea. Six of the seven species have all been erroneously treated as D. truncatula by earlier pteridologists. A key to the species is provided and descriptions of all species are given.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 482
Author(s):  
Alice Michie ◽  
John S. Mackenzie ◽  
David W. Smith ◽  
Allison Imrie

Ross River virus (RRV) is the most medically significant mosquito-borne virus of Australia, in terms of human morbidity. RRV cases, characterised by febrile illness and potentially persistent arthralgia, have been reported from all Australian states and territories. RRV was the cause of a large-scale epidemic of multiple Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) from 1979 to 1980, involving at least 50,000 cases. Historical evidence of RRV seropositivity beyond Australia, in populations of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, has been documented. We describe the genomic characterisation and timescale analysis of the first isolate of RRV to be sampled from PNG to date. Our analysis indicates that RRV has evolved locally within PNG, independent of Australian lineages, over an approximate 40 year period. The mean time to most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) of the unique PNG clade coincides with the initiation of the PICTs epidemic in mid-1979. This may indicate that an ancestral variant of the PNG clade was seeded into the region during the epidemic, a period of high RRV transmission. Further epidemiological and molecular-based surveillance is required in PNG to better understand the molecular epidemiology of RRV in the general Australasian region.


Author(s):  
John D Hart ◽  
Viola Kwa ◽  
Paison Dakulala ◽  
Paulus Ripa ◽  
Dale Frank ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Reliable cause of death (COD) data are not available for the majority of deaths in Papua New Guinea (PNG), despite their critical policy value. Automated verbal autopsy (VA) methods, involving an interview and automated analysis to diagnose causes of community deaths, have recently been trialled in PNG. Here, we report VA results from three sites and highlight the utility of these methods to generate information about the leading CODs in the country. Methods VA methods were introduced in one district in each of three provinces: Alotau in Milne Bay; Tambul-Nebilyer in Western Highlands; and Talasea in West New Britain. VA interviews were conducted using the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) shortened questionnaire and analysed using the SmartVA automated diagnostic algorithm. Results A total of 1655 VAs were collected between June 2018 and November 2019, 87.0% of which related to deaths at age 12 years and over. Our findings suggest a continuing high proportion of deaths due to infectious diseases (27.0%) and a lower proportion of deaths due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) (50.8%) than estimated by the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2017: 16.5% infectious diseases and 70.5% NCDs. The proportion of injury deaths was also high compared with GBD: 22.5% versus 13.0%. Conclusions Health policy in PNG needs to address a ‘triple burden’ of high infectious mortality, rising NCDs and a high fraction of deaths due to injuries. This study demonstrates the potential of automated VA methods to generate timely, reliable and policy-relevant data on COD patterns in hard-to-reach populations in PNG.


Author(s):  

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Rice grassy stunt tenuivirus Viruses: Tenuivirus. Hosts: Rice (Oryza sativa). Information is given on the geographical distribution in ASIA, Bangladesh, Brunei, Darussalam, China, India, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Indonesia, Java, Nusa, Tenggara, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Japan, Kyushu, Korea Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, OCEANIA, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands.


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