Papua New Guinea PM’s brother Larsen Marape ‘jumps COVID-19 jab queue’

One of the first of 8000 COVID jabs donated by Australia to PNG was given not to a frontline health worker but to the PM’s bodyguard brother, prompting allegations of queue jumping.

Larsen Marape, the PNG Prime Minister’s brother, receives one of the precious first doses donated by Australia for frontline health workers in the impoverished country.

One of the first of 8000 COVID jabs donated by Australia to Papua New Guinea was given not to a frontline health worker but to the Prime Minister’s bodyguard brother, prompting allegations of queue jumping.

Larsen Marape, a former rugby league player who works in his brother James Marape’s close personal protection team, was among the first 50 Papua New Guineans to receive one of the shots.

The Prime Minister received the first donated jab on Tuesday in front of television cameras to help counter widespread vaccine hesitancy as his country faces a surge in COVID cases.

Health Secretary Osborne Liko, Olympic weightlifter Dika Toua, and elder statesman Dadi Toka Snr — the father of Port ­Moresby deputy governor Dadi Toka Jnr — also had some of the initial jabs to prove their safety.

Former prime minister Peter O’Neill told The Australian the Prime Minister’s brother was not in the high-risk category so he should not have received the jab.

“It is a concern when the health workers are yet to be vaccinated,” Mr O’Neill said.

“He has got no public role whatsoever in enforcing COVID controls in the country. He is not at risk. Just because he is the brother of the Prime Minister does not entitle him to be jumping the queue.”

The Prime Minister’s office said Mr Marape’s close protection team of about 10 officers was vaccinated from the donated jabs.

“Larsen belongs to a team of close protection personnel attached to the PM. That’s why they were vaccinated. They handle his security, food, water bottles etc,” Mr Marape’s spokesman said.

Australia delivered the urgent shipment of COVID shots to PNG last week to protect the country’s “essential health workforce”, starting with those in the capital Port Moresby, where more than 100 hospital staff have succumbed to the virus.

Australian expatriates in Port Moresby have launched an online petition calling for access to the 8000 Australian-supplied jabs, or stocks imported for the nation’s diplomats and their families. One expat businessman, who declined to be identified because he feared he might lose his visa, blasted “the hypocrisy of the PNG government vaccinating their elite over their health workers”.

“But don’t the PNG leaders just follow the lead of their closest neighbour who has vaccinated their government employees and left their citizens unprotected?” the Australian man said. “And now they are embarrassed as the truly needy health workers across the country still wait for vaccinations, which are being consumed by political families.”

Australia sent the AstraZeneca shots last week, and has promised at least 1 million more from Australia’s European-manufactured supplies when they are released. But the overwhelming majority of the country’s nine million people — 90 per cent of whom live outside Port Moresby — may never be vaccinated.

Mr Marape said the government was looking at all options to source vaccines. “The department of health is working on bringing in vaccines, and our good neighbour Australia is also working on bringing in more for us,” he said.

“We are also working closely with the Chinese government. Once the vaccines from China are cleared by the medical board then we will bring that in as well.”

PNG has recorded more than 5620 positive cases and 56 deaths, but low testing rates mean the numbers are likely far higher.