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Australia has a long history of population-based immunisation programs including legislations. This paper reports on a review of evaluations of the impact of the federal No Jab No Pay (NJNPay) and state implemented No Jab No Play (NJNPlay) legislations on childhood immunisation coverage and related parental attitudes.
Partial replacement of resident Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with introduced mosquitoes carrying certain strains of inherited Wolbachia symbionts can result in transmission blocking of dengue and other viruses of public health importance. Wolbachia strain wAlbB is an effective transmission blocker and stable at high temperatures, making it particularly suitable for hot tropical climates.
Jonathan Carapetis AM AM MBBS FRACP FAFPHM PhD FAHMS Co-Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH 08 6319 1000 contact@thekids.org.au Head,
The spectrum of diseases caused by Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) ranges from superficial to serious life-threatening invasive infections. We conducted a scoping review of published articles between 1980 and 2021 to synthesize evidence of state transitions across the Strep A disease spectrum. We identified 175 articles reporting 262 distinct observations of Strep A disease state transitions.
We investigated the genetic and epigenetic regulation of the UBASH3A gene and its association with early-onset sepsis. Using matched whole blood DNA methylation, gene expression, genotypes, and immune cell counts from the EPIC-HIPC newborn cohort, we report that promoter methylation was negatively correlated with ontogenetic changes in UBASH3A gene expression and circulating CD3+ T-cell numbers.
In 2024, the government of Western Australia introduced 'nirsevimab', a monoclonal antibody offering protection from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), for eligible infants. This study explores why parents of infants who were eligible to receive nirsevimab opted to decline or delay the immunisation.
Asymptomatic carriage of Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) may contribute to transmission, yet its role remains poorly understood and evidence on optimal detection methods is limited. While self-collected throat swabs are used in infectious disease surveillance, their value for identifying asymptomatic Strep A carriage in adults is uncertain. This pilot prospective cohort study, conducted at a Perth medical research institute between August and October 2024, assessed feasibility and acceptability of self-collection, with sensitivity as a secondary objective.
Hepatitis B (HBV) prevalence is very high in pregnant women in the Dolpa district of Nepal, a region characterised by a remote geographic landscape and low vaccination coverage. Using mathematical modelling, we evaluated the impact of third-trimester tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) prophylaxis on HBV burden and estimated the time required to achieve HBV elimination in Dolpa.
Disease spreading models such as the ubiquitous SIS compartmental model and its numerous variants are widely used to understand and predict the behavior of a given epidemic or information diffusion process. A common approach to imbue more realism to the spreading process is to constrain simulations to a network structure, where connected nodes update their disease state based on pairwise interactions along the edges of their local neighborhood.
Vaccination is the injection of an inactivated bacteria or virus into the body. This simulated infection allows an individual's immune system to develop an adaptive immunity for protection against that type of illness. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, this results in herd immunity.