It started with a plan to vaccinate a small village in Papua New Guinea.
A team of five doctors and nurses – led by hepatologist Associate Professor Alice Unah Lee – travelled to Itokama in 2013 at the request of a young Sydney-based patient whose mother had died there from suspected complications of hepatitis B. The young boy also had hepatitis B.
“We thought we would be able to vaccinate his village so no other kids would be exposed, because the kids remained at risk and most were not vaccinated,” muses Dr Lee.
But the simple mission soon grew into something much bigger.
Four years later the group has delivered over 9000 pentavalent or hepatitis vaccines in the remote and under-serviced villages of Papua New Guinea, where the estimated rate of hepatitis B is well over 10%, a rate similar to that of the Pacific islands where the highest global prevalence of hepatitis B is noted.
They work under the auspices of Hepatitis B Free, a charity they set up to deliver vaccines in areas of unmet need, including Myanmar and North Korea.
“You are looking at a disease that is killing people, many very young. Most don’t get medical attention until it’s too late… it’s a silent killer.
“There is currently no treatment available in these areas. We have had access to these life-saving drugs for over a decade.”
That first visit was the biggest eye opener, said Dr Lee.
“Your idea is very romanticised then when you arrive in country it’s very different.”
![PNG 1](https://thelimbic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PNG-1.jpg)
Dr Lee treats a patient.
After arriving at Port Moresby airport, the team boarded a twin engine Kodiac plane.
“Every individual person is weighed and then they distribute the weight throughout the plane and you fly just above the clouds, which is beautiful.”
Arriving at the small grass air strip they were greeted by the villagers waiting behind a ribbon.
“There were just hundreds of faces and what really struck me that there were so many kids, it was overwhelming.”
The group spent a week trekking from village to village, sleeping under mosquito nets on bamboo floors in thatched roof huts with pigs roaming underneath.
There was no running water, no electricity and the toilets were basic drop boxes.
“It was like time travel, but the reality for these communities, an alternative universe. We had to take in our own solar powered fridge for the vaccines and then have the locals carry it from village to village. It remains there today.”