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Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 was a crucial public health measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the multiple strategies developed to increase vaccine uptake, governments often employed vaccine mandates. However, little evidence exists globally about the impact of these mandates and their subsequent removal on vaccine uptake, including in Australia, France, Italy and the USA.
COVID-19 related non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) disrupted global healthcare utilisation, with notable declines in infection related paediatric hospitalisations. We aimed to identify non-infectious paediatric conditions for which the incidence of hospital admissions increased during the introduction and alleviation of NPIs in 2020.
War and conflict severely disrupt public health systems, compromising infectious disease surveillance in many affected regions. Mpox, a re-emerging zoonotic disease, poses a growing global threat, especially in areas where traditional monitoring is inaccessible.The mpox virus has distinct clades with varying transmission and severity.
The overarching goal of the Australian coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program has been to protect all people in Australia from the harm caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This review reflects on the role of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) in the national COVID-19 vaccination program, in terms of the initial programmatic and clinical recommendations in the evolving context of evidence relating to the disease and vaccines, epidemiology, and the program rollout.
Contact tracing is an important public health measure used to reduce transmission of infectious diseases. Contact tracers typically conduct telephone interviews with cases to identify contacts and direct them to quarantine, with the aim of preventing onward transmission. However, in situations where caseloads exceed the capacity of the public health system, timely interviews may not be feasible for all cases. Here we present a modelling framework for assessing the impact of different case interview prioritisation strategies on disease transmission.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a major topic of interest in infectious disease management. We studied AMR in Clostridioides difficile isolated in Cambodia.
High nasopharyngeal pneumococcal carriage density is associated with severe pneumonia; however, little is known about factors that affect pneumococcal carriage density including pneumococcal vaccination. We describe pneumococcal density by clinical and demographic factors, and effect of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) on density in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and Mongolia, 3–6 years following national PCV13 introduction.
Notifications of syphilis in Australia have increased since 2011, particularly among gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Adherence to current late latent syphilis treatment regimen is low-moderate, which is a significant health issue. To address this treatment non-compliance, a single high-dose benzathine benzylpenicillin G regimen has been under clinical trial.
Phage therapy is a promising approach against multidrug-resistant infections, yet systemic administration can lead to incomplete cures. We investigated the distribution, immune responses, and efficacy of the therapeutic phage KPP10 delivered via intranasal or intraperitoneal routes in murine Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection models.
Obesity was a risk factor for severe COVID-19 in children during early outbreaks of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 and the Delta variant. However, the relationship between obesity and COVID-19 severity during the Omicron wave remains unclear.