Oceania

Abstract

Oceania is a convenient grouping of Australia, New Zealand and their dependent territories, and Polynesia. The climate varies from tropical in northern Australia and the Polynesian islands through temperate to the southern-most points of Tasmania and New Zealand at 42°S and 43°S, respectively. The region has possessed no large city until the rise of Sydney and Melbourne in Australia to the million mark around 1930. There are many observations on the effects of the small scattered populations on the incidence of infective diseases, for example, Rolleston (1937); poverty and urban overcrowding have not occurred anywhere on the scale of the European states. Although part of Oceania lies in the tropics, “tropical diseases,” with the exception of filariasis, have played a small part in the health of the community. In particular, malaria has only been endemic in the far north of Australia, that is, in northern Queensland and the Northern Territory. The influenza pandemic affected most of Oceania. Malaria has not been endemic in Polynesia, neither have the other great pestilences, although plague has occurred in Australia. There has been no parallel in Australia and New Zealand to the frequent importation of epidemics from the West Indies into the eastern seaboard of the United States.