00:00the world has been very successful at eradicating it currently you have around 99 percent of the
00:09infections actually has been eradicated since 1990 1988 what we have in Papua New Guinea is
00:18something that the country was successful in eradicating polio in 2000 in 2018-19 we had a
00:27polio outbreak and the country actually successfully with partner support managed to squeal that outbreak
00:36today we have another outbreak and the reason it's dangerous for Papua New Guinea is because we
00:43have very very low vaccine coverage and so how is it believed it has resurfaced in Papua New Guinea
00:50polio knows no borders knows no boundaries there was an outbreak in Indonesia as you mentioned
00:58you know typically this virus is linked to the one in Indonesia so we found the virus I mean through
01:07the sewage samples the environmental testing samples they've detected the virus they've also seen the
01:14virus in healthy children in stool samples of healthy children that means the virus is now circulating in
01:22the community and what's the danger if it spreads rapidly polio has no cure we have in the early 60s
01:32and 70s seen children with iron lungs we've seen children really suffering through having their
01:42bones having their limbs affected but what we know is polio can be prevented so polio can be prevented just
01:50through vaccination what is critical for Papua New Guinea is we have less than 50 percent of our children
01:57vaccinated and so there's low immunity in the community there's low immunity among our children so we
02:04need to make sure at this moment that more than 90 percent of our children are vaccinated against polio
02:11and so how extensive are those efforts now to get it under control in PNG so the government has actually
02:19activated the their campaigns they've activated the NEC and what they are doing is in the two cities where
02:28we have founded Port Morrisby and in lay there has been an active already surveillance started and
02:35vaccination campaigns the government has also um what they have done is they've established four groups
02:42there is a group in terms of a research advisory group operational group which is supporting every
02:48single province in addressing this could PNG do with some help on this definitely there is multiple ways
02:58that the PNG could do with help on it it could definitely do with funding resources around 93 million
03:06kina are needed for the vaccination the government has already released through its NEC
03:13national executive council 13.5 million kina we have a budget deficit of 80 million kina which we are
03:22trying to mobilize globally so yes people could contribute to ensuring that they have the funds to get the
03:30vaccine the second is advocate for everybody to take the vaccines create the message that vaccination is
03:37safe immunization is safe all our children need to be vaccinated
03:43so
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