Vaccine success and challenges in northern Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in rural and remote Australia have lower vaccine coverage rates and experience higher rates of notification and hospitalisations for vaccine preventable diseases than non-Aboriginal people. This paper explores important public health and research activities being undertaken in the Northern Territory to reduce this disparity in vaccine program performance, with a particular focus on rotavirus, meningococcal, human papilloma virus and COVID-19 vaccines. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

COVID-19 the catalyst for a new paradigm in vocational education and training

This paper examines the response by a Vocational Education and Training (VET) provider in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia to the travel and social distancing restrictions brought about by COVID-19. The paper commences with a description of the impact of COVID-19 on the VET sector. The paper then describes the VET regulatory environment prior to February 2020 and the responsibility of VET providers to comply with the requirements of the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), in the delivery of VET programs to domestic and international students. A discussion of the lack of a specific vocational education pedagogy, the complexity of delivering VET programs online as well as current research findings in this area follows. A description of the College provides the context to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of programs in the Northern Territory VET sector. The paper describes how the College, which had a high international student cohort, migrated their courses online in order to remain viable in the highly volatile and unforeseen circumstances brought about by COVID-19. In order to ascertain the effectiveness of the online delivery of course offerings, a questionnaire and a series of face to face and telephone interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. The mixed method approach employed in this research was consistent with contemporary social and educational research. The paper concludes with the call for a new paradigm and policy shift in Vocational Education and Training post COVID-19. © 2022, Adult Learning Australia. All rights reserved.

Irrigated agriculture potential of Australia's northern territory inferred from spatial assessment of groundwater availability and crop evapotranspiration

Agricultural expansion has been a hot topic in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia in recent years. However, insufficient information on available water resources and crop evapotranspiration is a bottleneck to this expansion. Towards closing this gap, this study employs the newest Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS;version 2.2) catchment products assimilated from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE;hereafter called GLDAS-DA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Penman-Monteith equation to spatially evaluate the Balance between water availability (i.e., groundwater and effective rainfall) and melons, maize and citrus crop evapotranspiration (water demand) of three representative (short-, medium-season and perennial) crop types over the NT for the 2010–2019 period. Specifically, this Balance is the estimated ratio of water availability and crop evapotranspiration, representing the crop area that can be planted in each GLDAS-DA grid cell. The larger the Balance , the greater the irrigated agriculture potential. Under the average 2010–2019 conditions, our results show that the northern part of the NT has the highest irrigated agriculture potentials with the average Balance of 9430 ha (15.7%), 5490 ha (9.1%) and 3520 ha (5.8%) for melons, maize and citrus, respectively, excluding non-agriculture areas. Irrigated agriculture in the central part of the NT shows less potential compared to the northern part of the NT, with the average Balance of 2780 ha (4.6%), 2000 ha (3.3%) and 970 ha (1.6%) for melons, maize and citrus, respectively (excluding non-agriculture areas). The southern part of the NT shows an average Balance below 1% of grid cell for all three crops, suggesting that only small-scale irrigated agriculture could be possible. In addition, the Balance across most of the northern and central parts of the NT decreased by 50% or more during 2019 dry period. Drought risk management should therefore be a serious consideration when exploring further expansion of irrigated agriculture in the NT. • Irrigated-agriculture potential in NT is assessed through groundwater and ETc. • The northern NT has highest potential for irrigated agriculture. • The shoreline of central NT shows potential for intensive irrigated-farming. • The southern NT has limited potential for irrigated agriculture. • Agriculture potential reduces 50% or more in the NT during the dry climate of 2019. [ FROM AUTHOR];Copyright of Agricultural Water Management is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Physical distancing and non-respiratory notifiable diseases in the Northern Territory, March-May 2020.

ABSTRACT: Strict physical distancing measures and border controls have been introduced in the Northern Territory (NT), and across Australia, to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). These measures have been associated with reduced incidence of other respiratory illnesses such as influenza. It is currently unclear what effect these measures have on non-respiratory communicable diseases. The incidence of notifiable non-respiratory communicable diseases within the NT, from 15 March to 15 May 2020, the period of most restrictive physical distancing, was monitored and is here compared with two control periods: (i) the 4 months immediately prior and (ii) the same two-month period from the preceding 5 years. During the study period, there was a decline in incidence of communicable enteric illnesses, particularly in shigellosis and rotavirus where person-to-person spread is the main transmission route. There was an increase in chlamydial conjunctivitis in areas with endemic trachoma, which is under further investigation. There was no observed increase in conditions associated with crowding, such as those related to group A streptococcal infection.

Asymptomatic COVID-19 or are we missing something?

The Northern Territory (NT) Centre for Disease Control (CDC) undertook contact tracing of all notified cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) within the Territory. There were 28 cases of COVID-19 notified in the NT between 1 March and 30 April 2020. In total 527 people were identified as close contacts over the same period; 493 were successfully contacted; 445 were located in the NT and were subsequently quarantined and monitored for disease symptoms daily for 14 days after contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case. Of these 445 close contacts, 4 tested positive for COVID-19 after developing symptoms; 2/46 contacts who were cruise ship passengers (4.3%, 95% CI 0.5-14.8%) and 2/51 household contacts (3.9%, 95% CI 0.5-13.5%). None of the 326 aircraft passengers or 4 healthcare workers who were being monitored in the NT as close contacts became cases.

The first 2 months of COVID-19 contact tracing in the Northern Territory of Australia, March-April 2020.

The Northern Territory (NT) Centre for Disease Control (CDC) undertook contact tracing of all notified cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) within the Territory. There were 28 cases of COVID-19 notified in the NT between 1 March and 30 April 2020. In total 527 people were identified as close contacts over the same period; 493 were successfully contacted; 445 were located in the NT and were subsequently quarantined and monitored for disease symptoms daily for 14 days after contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case. Of these 445 close contacts, 4 tested positive for COVID-19 after developing symptoms; 2/46 contacts who were cruise ship passengers (4.3%, 95% CI 0.5-14.8%) and 2/51 household contacts (3.9%, 95% CI 0.5-13.5%). None of the 326 aircraft passengers or 4 healthcare workers who were being monitored in the NT as close contacts became cases.