“Only your blood can tell the story,” an elder from Galiwin’ku told researchers who were trying to eliminate chronic hepatitis B in Aboriginal communities.

His message has helped inspire an “intensive effort” across the Northern Territory using a combination of mobile technology and on-country care. It means researchers are confident the disease can be eliminated in the next five years.

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Dr Jane Davies, a from the Menzies School of Health Research, has worked for the past eight years to develop the approach alongside Aboriginal health professionals, including Sarah Bukulatjpi from the Miwatj Health in Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island), where they trialled what they call the “one-stop liver shop”.

“It’s a model we piloted with that community, and [it] involved our clinical service going out to the community, taking a portable ultrasound, taking a portable fibroscan, and giving people everything they need for their hep B care in one session, in their home community,” Davies said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sarah Bukulatjpi, a chronic disease specialist from Miwatj Health in Galiwin’ku. Photograph: Menzies School of Health Research

The important factor was offering people essential chronic hepatitis B (CHB) information in their first language, delivered in terms they could understand and that respected their cultural needs.

“That was absolutely, incredibly game-changing,” Davies said.

Bukulatjpi is an Aboriginal health professional at the Ngalkanbuy clinic specialising in chronic disease. She has won a swag of awards for her work. Bukulatjpi helped develop an app in Yolngu-matha, one of the primary languages in Galiwin’ku. The app has made a huge difference to awareness and understanding of CHB, because it means people have information they need at their fingertips, something people who have access to Google take for granted.

“Now they really understand,” Bukulatjpi said. “Sometimes it’s difficult, telling them this story, that they’ve got this disease. Sometimes they feel shame.

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“That’s why we need to tell them in a different way, sit with them. They have to share their story first, we have to listen to them, then we have to tell them the story of what they’ve got.”

The app is easy to use. Once downloaded it’s cached, so people don’t need data to access it. Part of the “one-stop liver shop” is helping people download it on to their phones so they can explore it in their own time.

“They can talk quietly, separated to women and men,” Bukulatjpi said. “And with ladies that are pregnant, it tells them how it can affect the baby as well. So they’re separate stories to tell and we can tell them in Yolngu-matha.

“That’s why we are trying to get the message to other communities across north-east Arnhem Land. This is a good model to prevent this. They can tell our people in other communities they don’t have to be scared and be silent.”



The National Health and Medical Research Council has allocated an additional $1.4m to the project, which will help translate the app into 10 more Aboriginal languages, meaning about 70% of Aboriginal people in the NT will be able to access information about CHB in their first languages, for the first time.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The hep B app offers information in a local language. Photograph: Menzies School of Health Research

CHB is common in Aboriginal communities in the NT. Of people living with the virus, 25% will die from it, either of liver failure or liver cancer. Eliminating CHB means making sure there are no new cases, which requires an intensive vaccination program, and ongoing clinical care in communities, not a big city hospital.

“As part of your care you need a six-monthly ultrasound. As you can imagine, flying every single person to a centre where they can get that service every six months for the rest of their lives is almost an impossible task logistically,” Davies said.

“Whereas, if we go to the community, we blitz through 30 people in two days and we go four times a year to that community, so we can keep up with what people need.”



Over the next five years, every Aboriginal person in the NT registered with a medical provider will have their hep B status recorded.

“Our target is to vaccinate greater than 80% of those vulnerable. For those who have it, we’ll have them on our register so there’s a way to follow them up and make sure they’re getting appropriate care pathways,” Davies said.