(author: kate _green

A new document calls for more cooperation between Australia and New Zealand in the face of any future pandemic. (Image from file)
Photo: AFP

New research calls for a cooperative Australasian approach to future pandemics to improve access to vaccines.

The document, published by the Center for Public Health Communication and entitled The case for a pandemic cooperation agreement between New Zealand and Australiais written by Nick Wilson, Matt Boyd, John D Potter, Osman Mansoor, Amanda Kvalsvig and Michael Baker.

Wilson, a professor of public health at the University of Otago, said a cooperative agreement would allow New Zealand and Australia, and potentially Pacific island countries in the future, to share the cost vaccines, masks, testing and quarantine facilities.

“Australia is moving forward with a facility that would be capable of producing 100,000,000 doses per year of a new vaccine, and that type of production is simply nothing that New Zealand cannot do easily .”

But the benefits could go both ways, he said.

“New Zealand could help fund vaccine development and production (and) could implement a quarantine that would help Australians return from overseas if their quarantine facilities were at maximum capacity.

“And if it worked, maybe there could be a single mask production factory in New Zealand that would supply masks to Australia.”

Other potential benefits include coordinated disease surveillance and collaborative simulation modeling, which could enable both countries to make better decisions.

“Initially, if countries are really good at sharing information, their assessment of the threat of the pandemic can be better informed,” Wilson said.

“Is this a pandemic where you wouldn’t close the border? Or maybe you would.”

Working within the same political framework would also allow trade and travel between the two countries to continue more normally, even during a pandemic, he said.

“Historically, Australia and New Zealand have cooperated in many areas,” he said, such as trade, defense and biosecurity.

“I think (a collaboration in response to a pandemic) is certainly something that has a good chance of success.”

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