New research suggests that some Melanesian nations may take years to achieve even basic COVID-19 vaccination coverage, hampering their economic recovery and raising the risk of new variants emerging close to Australia's shores.

By contrast, Fiji and smaller Pacific Island nations in Polynesia and Micronesia have already achieved or are close to reaching key vaccination benchmarks, making it much easier for them to re-open to the outside world. 

The Lowy Institute has crunched health and population data to project when Pacific Island nations are likely to have vaccinated enough people to protect their populations from the worst impacts of COVID-19. 

Lowy Institute research fellow Alexandre Dayant said the analysis "revealed a region divided", with the Melanesian nations of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands lagging well behind the rest. 

Papua New Guinea's position is particularly dire.

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The country has been hit hard by the delta strain of COVID-19 but fewer than 4 per cent of eligible adults are currently vaccinated, and the Lowy Institute projects only 16 per cent of people will be vaccinated by December next year. 

Its long-term projection is even more pessimistic: Lowy predicts only a third of PNG's adult population will be fully vaccinated by April 2026, more than four years from now.

The vaccine rollout in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands has been significantly faster, and both nations have managed to protect their citizens and stop COVID-19 from spreading through the community by shutting their borders.

However, both countries are still making much slower progress than other Pacific nations.

The Lowy Institute research predicts that the Solomon Islands will have vaccinated 66 per cent of its eligible adults by December next year, below the thresholds needed to curb the impact of COVID-19. 

And the Lowy Institute predicts Vanuatu will only have vaccinated 56 per cent of eligible adults by the end of next year, which means it will remain vulnerable to a catastrophic outbreak and will likely have to keep its borders shut for some time.

Challenges facing the region

Lowy's Mr Dayant said all three nations — and, particularly, Papua New Guinea — were struggling with vaccine hesitancy and outright resistance. 

"The issue in these countries is a combination of a limited number of healthcare workers, weak government capacity, large rural populations and misinformation," Mr Dayant said.

"In a region where social media has become the primary conduit for news consumption, conspiracy and conjecture about the vaccine have spread faster than the disease itself.

"This has fed into an already-low level of trust in formal and public institutions." 

Australia has already poured substantial resources into the vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea, including programs designed to encourage vaccination and fight misinformation. 

However, Mr Dayant said, the grim forecast for PNG showed Australia and other development partners in the country needed to expand counter-misinformation campaigns.

"You could help design more targeted and context-specific campaigns across a range of platforms to convey the message [that] the vaccine is safe," he said. 

He also urged Australia to expand its efforts to bolster health systems in Melanesia in order to help drive up the vaccination rate. 

The Lowy Institute's forecasts for Melanesia contrast sharply with its projections and assessments of the vaccine rollout in other parts of the Pacific. 

Fiji was battered by an outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19 this year but has now vaccinated more than 90 per cent of adults — largely using doses donated by Australia — which has dramatically driven down the number of cases and admissions to hospital. 

Mr Dayant said Fiji's performance stood out as a "turnaround success" in the region, giving the Government credit for an effective vaccination rollout, driven by both incentives and controversial vaccine mandates for Fijian workers. 

Palau and Nauru were also able to quickly vaccinate almost their entire populations, reaching key vaccine milestones well ahead of Australia.

The Lowy Institute predicts that other Micronesian nations are likely to reach the same level of protection in the first half of next year, often using doses provided by the United States. 

Larger Polynesian nations are making good progress towards full vaccination as well, with the Lowy Institute projecting Samoa will achieve widespread coverage next month, and Tonga hitting the same benchmark in January next year.

Australia, COVAX and NZ lead vaccine donations

The Lowy Institute research also confirmed that Australia was, by far, the largest donor of COVID-19 vaccines to the region. 

Australia's federal government has promised to share up to 15 million domestically manufactured vaccines with Pacific Island countries and Timor Leste as part of a broader commitment to provide 60 million doses to the wider region. 

The most recent federal government data shows that Australia has, so far, sent more than one million vaccines to Fiji, as well as more than 200,000 vaccines to both Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Vanuatu has received 100,000 doses from Australia, while Samoa has taken 50,000 doses and Tonga has taken 19,000.

The Lowy Institute said that the next-largest commitment to the Pacific region was from the COVAX Facility, which has committed 4.5 million doses, followed by New Zealand, which has promised 520,000 doses, and then China and the United States. 

Mr Dayant said that, when COVID-19 broke out, there were fears that Pacific Island nations would "fall towards the back of the global queue" for vaccines, but that scenario was averted thanks to the vaccine diplomacy of Australia and other donors.