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Research

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza are important causes of disease in children and adults. In Australia, information on the burden of RSV in adults is particularly limited.

Research

Atopic diseases are the most common chronic conditions of childhood. The apparent rise in food anaphylaxis in young children over the past three decades is of particular concern, owing to the lack of proven prevention strategies other than the timely introduction of peanut and egg.

Research

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.

Research

Impetigo, a bacterial infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes and S. aureus of the superficial dermis affects up to 162 million children at any one time. Three out of every five school-children in Samoa have active or recently healed impetigo, far higher than the global median impetigo prevalence surpassing previous estimates for the Oceania region.

Research

Risk-based recommendations are common for pneumococcal vaccines but little is known about their uptake. In Australia, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) was funded only for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) children and those with underlying medical conditions in 2001, and then there were different booster dose recommendations depending on risk after the introduction of universal PCV vaccination in 2005.

Research

As the rise in prevalence of allergic diseases worldwide corresponds in time with increasing infant vaccination, it has been hypothesized that childhood vaccination may increase the risk of allergic disease. We aimed to synthesize the literature on the association between childhood vaccination and allergy.

Research

Group A β-haemolytic Streptococcus (GAS), a Gram-positive bacterium, causes skin, mucosal and systemic infections. Repeated GAS infections can lead to autoimmune diseases acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia have the highest rates of ARF and RHD in the world.

Research

Convalescent plasma has been widely used to treat COVID-19 and is under investigation in numerous randomized clinical trials, but results are publicly available only for a small number of trials. The objective of this study was to assess the benefits of convalescent plasma treatment compared to placebo or no treatment and all-cause mortality in patients with COVID-19.

Research

Patients with haematological malignancies, haemopoietic stem cell transplant recipients and patients requiring admission to intensive care settings are at high risk for invasive candidiasis (IC). Over the past decade, there has been increased reporting of non-albicans species and fluconazole resistance in Australia. These guidelines provide updated evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis and management of IC in adult and paediatric haematology, oncology and intensive care settings.

Research

Maternal stressful life events during pregnancy have been associated with immune dysregulation and increased risk for asthma and atopy in offspring. Few studies have investigated whether prenatal stress is associated with increased overall or specific infectious diseases in childhood, nor explored sex differences. We sought to examine the relationship between the nature and timing of maternal stress in pregnancy and hospitalisation with infection in offspring.