Burnet staff working at one of our screening sites.

Community-led screening for disease in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea

We’re partnering with community researchers to check people for illness in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

People who get sick with tuberculosis, diabetes or other diseases don’t always realise it. This means they might not get the medical care they need, and infections continue to spread.

To address this, we’re working with partners in Papua New Guinea to conduct multi-disease screening in East New Britain province.

Multi-disease screening means checking people for:

infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and malaria

non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension.

Working in communities and local households, we’re taking a holistic approach to multi-disease screening. We aim to:

increase early diagnosis of disease

help more people get follow-up treatment

support local researchers and healthcare workers

make the process more inclusive of gender and disability.

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Burnet staff and community researchers unload screening equipment from a station wagon car.

Burnet staff and community researchers, including Alfred Muligi and Rebecca Tayan, unload portable screening equipment.

Close on nurse Sakaiah Luana, taking a breath during community screening.

Research nurse Sakaiah Luana supports our screening efforts.

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Partnering with communities

Our screening model is co-designed in partnership with local communities.

We screen in and among the community, and when we find disease, we help people get connected to care.

To support and evaluate the screening model, we’re also training and working with local researchers and health workers.

Inclusive research

Ben Theodore sits outside at one of our research tables.

President of East New Britain Association of Disabled Persons Ben Theodore is one of our project’s community researchers. As a person with lived experience of disability himself, he gathers disability-inclusive data by asking questions developed by the Washington Group.

It's important that this work is inclusive and fair. To support these aims, our project includes: