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Health Health

Suva’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital. A COVID-19 memorial in Suva.

of question” in terms of genome sequencing and having the capacities, get access to vaccines and then deliver the vac-
testing capability. cines to people right across the country,” said Dr Jacobs.
Pacific health ministers and their development partners are Having such measures in place give countries more options
also reassessing health spending, with an eye towards greater in terms of protecting the health of their people, while also
sustainability. dealing with the broader socio-economic impacts of having
For example, the Papua New Guinea government announced their borders closed for extended periods, Dr Jacobs said.
a huge 39% increase in its 2022 budget announcement at In light of increased repatriation flights, WHO acknowledges
the end of last year. A significant proportion of this is going that the quarantine system is limited in its effectiveness.
to capital expenditure, but Alyssa Leng and Stephen Howes “Even with very strict quarantine and testing arrangements,
writing at the DevPolicy blog observe that “Greater capital no quarantine system can 100% protect the country from
spending on health is undoubtedly important to improve the the virus coming in. And when we started to see Omicron in
provision of health services and deepen capacity. But the particular, which is a very infectious strain, we started seeing
urgent need is to increase spending on salaries, and goods and some leakage from the quarantine system and that was not
services (such as drugs, basic equipment, fuel for outreach surprising,” Dr Jacobs said.
and so on). Spending on these operational expenses does go
up in the budget – salaries by 19% and goods and services by NCDs: a political and policy issue
42% – but fails to meaningfully improve on spending in 2019 or Despite the crisis of COVID, non communicable diseases
2020 after accounting for inflation.” (NCDs) remain the Pacific’s greatest killers.
In Kiribati, the share of development-partner contributions Most Pacific Island countries and territories are not on track
channelled through government systems increased from 28% to meet the global Sustainable Development Goals relating to
to 42% from 2015 to 2019, giving the government much better NCDs due to the pandemic, natural disasters and other com-
oversight and control of national health plans and budgets. peting priorities, a paper to the meeting stated.
However, despite substantial increases in both domestic and Around 75% of deaths in PICs are caused by NCDs, posing
external funding to support responses to the pandemic, the a major threat to health and development. Heart disease,
tracking of health expenditures, both on and off system has cancer, diabetes and hypertension, are responsible for about
deteriorated since 2020 in most countries, the meeting heard. three quarters of avoidable deaths in Pacific Island countries,
Meanwhile Dr Jacobs said the pandemic response has seen Dr Jacobs confirmed. Recent studies have shown that people
innovation in telemedicine, the introduction of digital vac- living with NCDs are more vulnerable to COVID-19. “COVID-19
cination records and increasing availability of psychosocial has brought new urgency to the fight against non-communica-
support. Following WHO’s guidance, a number of Pacific na- ble diseases because as I think we all understand, people with
tions have launched e-registries for COVID vaccinations such NCDs are more likely to develop serious illness or die from
as Fiji’s vaccine pass, to “strengthen surveillance, strengthen COVID-19,” Dr Jacobs said.

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