The Pacific Island nations including Samoa took early and appropriate action to protect their populations following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Once the coronavirus vaccines were received, health teams were mobilised to engage communities in the vaccination program, resulting in high vaccination rates before community transmission of the COVID-19 virus hit Pacific shores. 

That was the consensus reached by a panel of health experts, who discussed the Pacific region’s response to the pandemic, during the Pasifika Medical Association (P.M.A.) Conference in Wellington last weekend. 

The panellists included the Ministers of Health of Fiji and Tonga, the C.E.O. of Health from the Cook Islands and the National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) Vice Chancellor and President, Aiono Professor Alec Ekeroma.

Discussions at last weekend’s conference revolved around the theme “Reconnect, Reflect, Reframe and Re-energise” with 400 delegates, which mainly consisted of health workers from across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands attending. 

The keynote speaker at the conference was the New Zealand Minister of Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, who gave a speech on the challenges during the pandemic.

Despite the best intentions of the health authorities, he said all did not go well initially with the vaccination drive as Pacific providers and those with Pacific values and Pacific cultural intelligence were not leading the effort. 

With appropriate resourcing of those with Pacific providers who communicated in the first languages of their communities, the N.Z. Minister said this turned the tide in the vaccination effort. 

Aupito then called for a “decolonization of thinking” and the dismantling of structures that don’t work for the Pacific region’s benefit and success. 

The former Pacific Community director general, Sir Colin Tukuitonga, made reference during his presentation at the conference to the high numbers of Maori and Pacific hospitalisations and deaths.

He said the lower vaccination rates at the outset were due to the persistent socio-economic disadvantage, high rates of chronic disease in those populations and the failure to engage Pacific providers and Pacific community leaders.

At the end of last year Samoa had the highest vaccination rate of any Pacific Island at 85 per cent, due to the lessons learnt from the 2019/2020 measles epidemic and through the added efforts of community engagement. 

Fiji was hit earlier by a more deadly Delta variant when its vaccination rate was only 68 per cent and natural disasters such as two cyclones did not help the local authorities on the ground. Tonga had a volcanic eruption and a tsunami two weeks before the Omnicron variant hit but its vaccination rate was 95 per cent resulting in only 12 deaths from the virus.

The Pacific panellists thanked the New Zealand Government through the Minister of Pacific People for the assistance received during the pandemic.