OBJECTIVES Limited human resources are widely recognised as a barrier to achieve health-related Millennium Development Goals. Availability of medical supplies and suitably trained health personnel are crucial to ensuring a well-functioning medical supply system. The objective of this paper is to identify the factors which influence the availability of medical supplies within the health faciliti...

This study aimed to investigate the correlations between early initiation (<12 years) of smoking cigarettes, alcohol use, and drug use (cannabis) with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in school-aged adolescents in four Pacific Island countries in Oceania. The sample included 6540 adolescents (≤13 to ≥16 years old) from Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Bivariate and multivari...

Between September 1991 and March 1993, 25 moth skinks (Lipinia noctua) were collected from various localities on the Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Vanuatu and examined for coccidians. In addition, a single Roux's lipinia skink (Lipinia rouxi) was collected from PNG and examined for coccidia. Sixteen (64%) L. noctua were found to harbor 2 new eimerians, and L. rouxi harbored an...

Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges and Pacific island countries are particularly vulnerable due to, among other factors, their geography, demography and level of economic development. A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) framework was used as a basis for the consideration of the potential health impacts of changes in the climate on the population of Vanuatu, to assess the risks...

Malaria still represents a global health burden; according to the World Health Organization, half of the world’s population are at risk from malaria. Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands situated in the South-west Pacific where Plasmodium vivax and falciparum malaria species are endemic. It has a total population of 221,000. Despite the efforts of the National Vector Borne Diseases Control P...

Ciguatera poisoning is endemic in many tropical and subtropical countries. We conducted a retrospective study of admissions to two hospitals on the islands of Vanuatu in the southwestern Pacific region. We estimated the annual hospital admission rate for fish poisoning to be 65 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 55-75)/100,000 population on the island of Santo and 29 (95% CI = 19-43)/100,000 popul...

Pigs have long held great symbolic import for the people of Vanuatu, a sprawling archipelago 1,000 miles northeast of Australia. In most of the indigenous, small-scale communities which comprised traditional Vanuatu society, pig ownership and pig killing conveyed status, wealth, and informal power. Such rituals were the sole measure of social standing and political rank. In this study, I show h...

Like in most Pacific island countries, dengue is not endemic in Vanuatu, and so, dengue transmission begins with the introduction of the virus via infected humans or mosquitoes into the country. The Ministry of Health, Vanuatu, has been successful in containing dengue transmission whenever the virus has been introduced, through an integrated approach using vertical and horizontal components. Th...

sectors is examined with regard to promoting the gross domestic product (GDP) of 12 countries in Asia and the Pacific over the last three decades. In six of those countries, namely Bangladesh, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, Johansen cointegration tests confirmed the existence of cointegrating relations. In the remaining countries, namely Fiji, Nepal, Si...