Contain This: The Latest in Global Health Security

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 Dr Bill Rodriguez, the Chief Executive Officer of...

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 Professor Jodie McVernon, the Director of Epidemiol...

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 stalwart of public health and development in Timo...

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 known to many for his year-long secondment as the D...

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 connected. The WHO estimates that more than 13 million...

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 disease in the Pacific, including a heavy burden...

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 adaptation, mitigation, and response, and...

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 people worldwide. They include specific obligations f...

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 government has worked with marginalised populatio...

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 cooperate across government to be able to prevent, detec...

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 of the communicable disease division. Since March...

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 Alliance.  Sarthak joined APLMA from the Harvard...

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 the PINTAR study, which is protecting...

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.  In this episode, we discuss the exciting thi...

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 Chief Investigator for the project, Dr. Aar...

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 researcher. Her research focuses on detection and tre...

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 vaccines to fight MERS, SARS and COVID. What are les...

“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 influential community volunteer networks to suppor...

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 the foundations for overall systems health. This epi...

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 beginning of the pandemic. The COVID-19 vaccinat...

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 progress gained reducing the epidemics of HIV/AIDS,...

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 doses arriving in their country. In this episode, we...

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'Neill, internationally recognised scientist...

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 regular Vosa host Arieta Rika, and will be published a...

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 were delighted to speak with Professor Fiona Ru...