When I went to Nigeria in April 2017 to research a story on the efforts there to stamp out polio, I couldn’t help but be grateful – and a bit mystified – that the disease had been absent so long from Papua New Guinea. With only a small proportion of the country having access to … Continue reading
Category Archives: Health
Epidemic of corruption causing health emergency across PNG: New York Times
As a serial visitor and close observer of PNG, I’ve been tuned in to the growing distress and anger of health workers at the collapse of supply lines of basic medicines and equipment to hospitals and clinics right across the country. Social media has been churning with reports of desperate and often grieving families. All … Continue reading
The Guardian: Child malnutrition crisis in PNG
Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world, with studies indicating that one in two children is chronically stunted, a condition from which they can never recover. The reasons are complex. It’s rarely a question of hunger, rather a lack of critical nutrients in the first 1000 days … Continue reading
Finalist: Australia Museum Eureka Awards
Thrilled and honoured to be nominated as a finalist in the 2018 Australia Museum Eureka Prizes in the science journalism category. Continue reading
Eradicating polio: for ABC RN’s The Health Report.
Following up my longform articles for Undark and The Atlantic (links can be found in earlier posts) I filed this radio doco for ABC RN’s The Health Report on what is hopefully the end game against this devastating virus. Tragically, around the same time, vaccine-derived polio turned up right next door, in PNG, where the … Continue reading
The last hard yard to wipe out polio
Earlier this year I went to northern Nigeria to research a story on the final push to wipe out wild poliovirus from the last crucibles of disease in terrorised parts of Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Commissioned by Undark magazine, it was co-published in The Atlantic. Continue reading
Putting the bite on malaria: Cosmos
My story for Cosmos magazine on the work of research scientists in Papua New Guinea into that diabolical human foe, the malaria parasite. Photos by Mayeta Clark. Link here. Continue reading