Search

Two Perth clinician-scientists have been recognised as national leaders in infectious disease research after being elected as Fellows of the esteemed Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

The Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases (WCVID) awarded three successful recipients with Catalyst research grants, with each researcher receiving $80,000 towards their chosen project.

One out of every 10 children with a bloodstream infection are infected with a multi-drug resistant organism in the nation’s first-ever surveillance study investigating the prevalence of paediatric antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has launched their sixth edition of Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services in a bid to tackle the transmission of germs amongst young kids.

Vital research promoting sun smart choices and skin cancer prevention for young Aboriginal people is now underway at The Kids Research Institute Australia thanks to a $100,000 Perpetual 2024 IMPACT Philanthropy grant.

A team led by Dr Joseph Kado from the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at The Kids Research Institute Australia, and The University of Western Australia (UWA) has been awarded $5 million by the Federal Government in a major push to prevent rheumatic heart disease across the Pacific.

Family planning counselling at different contact points of maternal health services has been recommended for increasing the uptake of modern contraceptive methods. However, studies from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) demonstrated inconsistent findings. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise the available current evidence for the association between family planning counselling and postpartum modern contraceptive uptake in SSA.

Vaccination is the most effective method of protecting people from invasive meningococcal disease (IMD). Of all the capsular groups, B is the most common cause of invasive meningococcal disease in many parts of the world. Despite this, adolescent meningococcal B vaccine programs have not been implemented globally, partly due to the lack of evidence for herd immunity afforded by meningococcal B vaccines.

Preterm infants are at increased risk for invasive neonatal bacterial infections. S. epidermidis, a ubiquitous skin commensal, is a major cause of late-onset neonatal sepsis, particularly in high-resource settings. The vulnerability of preterm infants to serious bacterial infections is commonly attributed to their distinct and developing immune system.

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a major human pathogen responsible for superficial infections through to life-threatening invasive disease and the autoimmune sequelae acute rheumatic fever (ARF). Despite a significant global economic and health burden, there is no licensed vaccine available to prevent GAS disease. Several pre-clinical vaccines that target conserved GAS antigens are in development.