New Zealand pledges $1 million to help fight Pacific measles crisis

  • 14/12/2019
"This plan offers immediate preventative action."
"This plan offers immediate preventative action." Photo credit: Getty Images.

New Zealand will give $1 million of funding to help fight measles in the Pacific, Winston Peters has announced.  

The contribution will be directed to the joint United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) Pacific Regional Action Plan for Measles.  

In a statement, the Foreign Minister said prevention through vaccination is the most effective way of avoiding illness and a costly health emergency. 

"This plan offers immediate preventative action. It allows for the flexibility to respond to additional requests from other Pacific nations and offers an efficient way of working regionally." 

Activities under the plan include targeted vaccination for children up to the age of five years of age, supplementary vaccine doses for new mothers and their families to protect babies too young to be vaccinated.

It also works to increase measles surveillance, public health and epidemiology support to those countries most at risk. 

The subsidy follows New Zealand supplying 200,000 vaccines for Fiji’s current mass vaccination campaign, provision of medical supplies and emergency funding.

Peters is currently in Samoa with Minister of Pacific Peoples, Hon Aupito William Sio.