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Research

The eradication of smallpox is considered one of the greatest achievements of humankind, thanks to vaccination. The widespread availability of childhood vaccines has substantially reduced childhood morbidity and mortality. Devastating infections, such as polio, have almost disappeared due to vaccination. In 2021, it was estimated that vaccination against ten selected pathogens will have averted 69 million deaths between 2000 and 2030. Increases in vaccine coverage and introduction of additional vaccines should reduce lifetime mortality by 72% in the 2019 birth cohort. However, access to vaccines that prevent life-threatening and disabling infectious diseases remains unequal.

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Our interdisciplinary team initiated a project to inform the COVID-19 vaccination programme. We developed a novel research co-creation approach to share emerging findings with government. 

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Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is an important and preventable cause of morbidity and mortality among children and young adults in low-income and middle-income countries, as well as among certain at-risk populations living in high-income countries. The 2012 World Heart Federation echocardiographic criteria provided a standardized approach for the identification of RHD and facilitated an improvement in early case detection.

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Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a major health threat worldwide, causing a significant economic burden to patients and their families. Due to the longer duration of treatment and expensive second-line medicine, the economic burden of MDR-TB is assumed to be higher than drug-susceptible TB.

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Jonathan Carapetis AM AM MBBS FRACP FAFPHM PhD FAHMS Executive Director; Co-Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH 08 6319 1000 contact@

Research

Early-life antibiotic exposure is disproportionately high compared to the burden of culture-proven early-onset sepsis (CP-EOS). We assessed the contribution of culture-negative cases to the overall antibiotic exposure in the first postnatal week.

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Malaria in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has declined rapidly over the last two decades, from 279,903 to 3926 (99%) cases between 2001 and 2021. Elimination of human malaria is an achievable goal and limited resources need to be targeted at remaining hotspots of transmission. 

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Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonotic parasite that causes malaria in humans. The pathogen has a natural host reservoir in certain macaque species and is transmitted to humans via mosquitoes of the Anopheles Leucosphyrus Group. The risk of human P. knowlesi infection varies across Southeast Asia and is dependent upon environmental factors. 

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Rhinoviruses (RVs) can cause severe wheezing illnesses in young children and patients with asthma. Vaccine development has been hampered by the multitude of RV types with little information about cross-neutralization. We previously showed that neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses to RV-C are detected twofold to threefold more often than those to RV-A throughout childhood. Based on those findings, we hypothesized that RV-C infections are more likely to induce either cross-neutralizing or longer-lasting antibody responses compared with RV-A infections.

Research

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death from a bacterial pathogen worldwide. China has the third highest TB burden in the world, with a high reported burden in Hunan Province (amongst others). This study aimed to investigate the spatial distribution of TB and identify socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental drivers in Hunan Province, China. Numbers of reported cases of TB were obtained from the Tuberculosis Control Institute of Hunan Province, China.