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This research sought to provide an outline of identified household-level environmental health initiatives to reduce or interrupt Strep A transmission along each of these pathways.
Skin infections affect physical health and, through stigma, social-emotional health. When untreated, they can cause life-threatening conditions. We aimed to assess the effect of a holistic, co-designed, region-wide skin control programme on the prevalence of impetigo.
Healthy skin is important for maintaining overall physical and cultural health and wellbeing. However, remote-living Australian Aboriginal children contend with disproportionally high rates of Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) infected impetigo.
Children spend almost one-third of their waking hours at school. Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) is a common childhood bacterial infection that can progress to causing serious disease. We aimed to detect Strep A in classrooms by using environmental settle plates and swabbing of high-touch surfaces in two remote schools in the Kimberley, Western Australia.
Scabies and related bacterial skin and soft tissue infections are highly prevalent in many tropical, low- and middle-income settings. These skin conditions contribute to higher healthcare costs and burdens on healthcare systems.
While there are many skin infections, reducing the burden of scabies and impetigo for remote living Aboriginal people, particularly children remains challenging. Aboriginal children living in remote communities have experienced the highest reported rate of impetigo in the world and are 15 times more likely to be admitted to hospital with a skin infection compared to non-Aboriginal children.
Combination antibiotic therapy with an antitoxin agent, such as clindamycin, is included in some guidelines for severe, toxin-mediated Staphylococcus aureus infections. The evidence to support this practice is currently limited to in vitro, animal and observational human case-series data, with no previous randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Scabies is an important predisposing factor of impetigo which can lead to serious bacterial complications. Ivermectin-based mass drug administration can substantially reduce scabies and impetigo prevalence in endemic settings, but the impact on serious bacterial complications is not known.
In 2019, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in partnership with the Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services carried out an integrated mass drug administration (MDA) for the treatment of scabies and lymphatic filariasis in the Northern Division of Fiji. We conducted a retrospective micro-costing exercise focused on the cost of scabies control in order to inform budgeting and policy decision making in an endemic setting.
Rates of acute rheumatic fever, a sequelae of group A Streptococcal (GAS) infection, remain unacceptably high in Indigenous Māori and Pacific children in New Zealand. This prospective study aimed to describe GAS antibody titres in healthy children (5–14 years) by ethnicity, and to determine how paired titres vary with GAS culture positive and negative pharyngitis, and GAS skin infections.