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Papua New Guinea's health system faces ongoing challenges in the provision of maternal and child health and has some of the poorest health indicators in the world. In this paper, we describe the impact of COVID-19 on maternal and child health, as examples of primary health care services. We conducted 131 semi-structured interviews with different population groups in seven provinces (Jul–Nov 2021). A deductive analysis focused on identifying the impact of COVID-19 using the World Health Organization building blocks framework. An inductive analysis explored these impacts for maternal and child health services specifically. We identified three broad themes: service disruption, challenges in access to care and service provision. Service disruption included the closure, suspension and relocation of services and workforce challenges due to healthcare worker absences, redeployment and working within an already constrained health system. Access to care was difficult due to lockdowns and restricted movement. Service provision continued despite the fear staff had of COVID-19. Investing in pandemic preparedness, including an adequately trained and resourced healthcare workforce and facilities able to withstand sustained provision of essential services should be integrated with locally appropriate, and timely community-based information to allay fears and mistrust within the healthcare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community activists, policymakers and researchers have long identified human rights as central to addressing the HIV epidemic. Over the past 10 years, efforts to incorporate human rights into the HIV response have focused on reforming laws which criminalise sex work and male-to-male sex. Laws criminalising sex work and male-to-male sex drive communities underground, making HIV prevention, testing, and treatment efforts more difficult. This article draws on a qualitative study conducted in Papua New Guinea (PNG) which examined stakeholder views on prospects for law reform, the impact of criminal laws on communities, and the role of law reform in addressing the HIV epidemic. While efforts to reform criminal laws related to sex work and male-to-male sex have taken place in PNG, these have been unsuccessful. Stakeholders identified that strategies for addressing criminal laws and the impacts of law reform must be grounded in the PNG context, that there must be material support for community members to engage with criminal laws and human rights, and that dignity rather than HIV should be the justification for law reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]