[author:kate _green
A new paper is calling for more cooperation between Australia and New Zealand in any future pandemics. (File image) Photo: AFP
New research is calling for a cooperative Australasian approach to future pandemics to improve vaccine access.
The paper, released by the Public Health Communication Centre and titled The case for a NZ-Australia Pandemic Cooperation Agreement, is authored 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 cooperation agreement would allow New Zealand and Australia, and potentially Pacific Island countries in the future, to share the cost of vaccines, masks, tests and quarantine facilities.
Calls for a Trans-Tasman pandemic cooperation agreement
"Australia's going ahead with a facility that would be able to produce 100,000,000 doses per year of a new vaccine, and that type of production is just nothing New Zealand could readily do."
But the benefits could go both ways, he said.
"New Zealand could help fund the vaccine development and production [and] could have quarantine that helped Australians return from overseas if their quarantine facilities were at maximum capacity.
"And if it worked out, maybe there could be a single mask production factory in New Zealand that supplied masks to Australia."
Other potential benefits included coordinated disease surveillance and collaborative simulation modelling, which could allow both countries to make better decisions.
"At the early stages, 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 under the same policy framework would also allow for trade and travel between the two countries to continue more normally, even during a pandemic, he said.
"Historically, Australia and New Zealand have cooperated on a lot of things," he said - such as trade, defence and biosecurity.
"I think [a pandemic response collaboration] is definitely something that has a good chance of success."
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