World Scabies Program
It’s within our grasp to eliminate Scabies from Fiji and the Solomon Islands by 2024
Scabies is a preventable disease that disproportionately affects children and families in overcrowded, impoverished living conditions, disrupting family life, interrupting educational outcomes and adding unnecessary burden to a stretched healthcare system. Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, in partnership with the people of Fiji and the Solomon Islands, is leading a program to eliminate scabies.
We are looking for visionary partners who will stand alongside us to realise this vision.
An investment of $AUD5M, will eliminate scabies from Fiji and the Solomon Islands. That’s just $0.90c of medication for each person in Fiji plus the cost of transport and staffing to administer medications. Are you with us?
“The infection rate is high among children, who often pick up mites from their friends. [They] scratch all night, interrupting their sleep, and struggle to concentrate in class during the day. Often the scratching leads to impetigo and the children have to stay away until they clear up, so they miss out on more school.”
- Dr Mike Kama, Fiji Ministry of Health
Scabies in Fiji and the Solomon Islands
- Human scabies is a parasitic infestation caused by Sarcoptes scabiei var hominis which burrows into the skin and affects an estimated 200 million people worldwide at any one time. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has formally designated scabies as a neglected tropical disease.
- Scabies is a disease of inequality affecting people living in crowded, impoverished conditions, with a disproportionate impact on children. It is highly transmissible between people.
- Day-to-day impacts for children include severe itching, disrupted sleep, stigma, social and interrupted school attendance. Effects are felt across an entire family and are largely born by women in their role as carer.
- Scabies can lead to long term and life-threatening complications such as severe skin infections and serious bacterial infections, bloodstream infections, kidney failure and heart disease.
- Scabies is endemic in Fiji and is a significant cause of morbidity, though locals may identify more with the local name, ‘mila mila’.
- 5% of children aged under ten years across Fiji were found to have scabies in 2021 and 84% of impetigo cases (skin infections) also have an underlying diagnosis of scabies.
- Scabies is highest in the iTaukei (Fijian) population with prevalence of 9.2%.
- Researchers believe rates of scabies prevalence will have declined during Covid and are anticipating a resurgence in transmission as mobility increases.
- Skin diseases are the seventh most common cause of hospital admission in Fiji, placing an unnecessary burden on a strained health system.
in the Western Division of Fiji, 2021 World Scabies Program.
Mass drug administration to eliminate scabies
Several trials in Fiji over the last decade have concluded that mass drug administration (MDA) of Ivermectin is able to reduce scabies prevalence by over 90%. Elimination of scabies relies on each person in Fiji and Solomon Islands receiving four Ivermectin tablets valued at 12 cents each or 48 cents per treatment – two tablets seven days apart and two tablets 12 months later.
Meet Nester Thugea
Meet Nester Thugea, Head Teacher at Gizo Primary School who spoke on the effectiveness of the scabies vaccination program in the Solomon Islands.
Funding to date
Murdoch Children’s was awarded AU$10M via the Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award to pursue a bold, transformative vision to establish the first World Scabies Program and eliminate scabies as a public health problem in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
We recently received $500,000 in funds and are urgently seeking a further AU$ 4,500,000 to eliminate scabies as a public health problem in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
To meet critical timelines for Ivermectin supply, funds must be committed as soon as possible.
An investment of $AUD4.5M will eliminate scabies from Fiji and the Solomon Islands. That’s just $0.90c of medication for each person in Fiji plus the cost of transport and staffing to administer medications. Are you with us?
Donate now
Donating from the USA
If you live in the USA, donations made through our philanthropic partner, The Chapel & York Foundation Inc are tax deductible.
The Chapel & York Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 and will issue you with a tax receipt for your donation, and then grant it to Murdoch Children's at the Chapel & York Foundation’s next quarterly board meeting.
Donating in Australia
Please contact us via email about other ways to donate in Australia:
show email address
Further information
Please contact show email address for further details about how you can support this program.
Please visit the World Scabies website to learn more.