A vigorous effort has been undertaken to develop a robust and high speed network in the Asia-Pacific region which satisfies the needs of the scientific community. Consortium for Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) are established in some countries in this region. Our group, along with collaborators in Singapore and Australia, is moving towards the establishment of Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics N...

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) designated Western Pacific region as one of great diversity. It contains the most populous country, China with its 1.2 billion people, and many small Pacific island countries, some with populations of less 10 000. The diversity also extends to politics, sociocultural life, and the economies o...

The current study focuses on the problem of determining investment attrаctiveness of countries by means of monitoring regional stock markets. The method of using the permutation entropy as a model of investment attractiveness estimation is suggested. We have calculated the permutation entropy for the time series of stock markets of countries for the period from 2005 to 2018. The countries with ...

BACKGROUND Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) face a double burden of disease, with a high prevalence of household food insecurity and childhood micronutrient deficiencies, accompanied by a burgeoning increase in adult obesity, diabetes and heart disease. METHODS A systematic literature review was undertaken to assess whether increased availability of, and access to, fish improv...

BACKGROUND Internationally, ethnic inequalities in mortality within countries are increasingly recognized as a public health concern. But few countries have data to monitor such inequalities. We aimed to provide a detailed description of ethnic inequalities (Māori [indigenous], Pacific, and European/Other) in mortality for a country with high quality ethnicity data, using both standard and nove...

Vaccination considered as one of the most cost-effective health interventions worldwide  through prevention and control of many serious childhood diseases (1). It is estimated  global coverage of  Dose 3 of Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTP3)among children one year old has been 86% in 2014 (by range from 77% to 96%  in African Region and Western Pacific Region; respectively) (2). Globally...

BACKGROUND Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) is an important Neglected Tropical Disease, being a major cause of disability worldwide. The Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis aims to eliminate LF as a public health problem by the year 2020, primarily through repeated Mass Drug Administration (MDA). The Pacific region programme commenced in 1999. By June 2007, five of the eleven countries ...

Deep-sea fisheries provide an important source of protein to Pacific Island countries and territories that are highly dependent on fish for food security. However, spatial management of these deep-sea habitats is hindered by insufficient data. We developed species distribution models using spatially limited presence data for the main harvested species in the Western Central Pacific Ocean. We us...

INTRODUCTION HIV epidemics in the Asia-Pacific region are concentrated among men who have sex with men (MSM) and other key populations. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective HIV prevention intervention and could be a potential game changer in the region. We discuss the progress towards PrEP implementation in the Asia-Pacific region, including opportunities and barriers. DISCUSSION A...

Climate change presents a significant and growing threat to human health, with diverse impacts projected for different regions. Investigators now report that Pacific island countries including Fiji, Tonga, and the Marshall Islands are among the nations most vulnerable to climate-related health problems due to their particular geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics. Their new...