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Children with birth defects experience higher rates of hospitalisation for ALRIs before age 2 years than children with no birth defects.
Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) continues to occur at high rates among Australian Aboriginal people.
Tamara Chris Valerie Veselinovic Brennan-Jones Swift BSc(Hons) MClinAud PhD PhD Clinical Research Fellow Head, Ear and Hearing Health Aboriginal
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory infection with a higher burden in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants and children. We conducted a pilot qualitative study identifying disease knowledge and willingness to immunise following the changing immunisation landscape for infant RSV in 2024.
Globally, Indigenous populations have been disproportionately impacted by pandemics. In Australia, though national infection rates with COVID-19 infections in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people were lower in the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was soon a greater burden in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Island people once Omicron was circulating. Uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine was also lower among Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.
Despite the volume of accumulating knowledge from prospective Aboriginal cohort studies, longitudinal data describing developmental trajectories in health and well-being is limited.
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of pneumonia and meningitis worldwide. Many different serotypes co-circulate endemically in any one location. The extent and mechanisms of spread and vaccine-driven changes in fitness and antimicrobial resistance remain largely unquantified.
Tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy are two of the most commonly performed ENT procedures in children, with over 500,000 cases performed annually in the United States. Whilst generally considered a safe and well-tolerated operation, it is not without its risks and complications including pain, nausea, anorexia and most importantly bleeding and post-tonsillectomy haemorrhage.
One third of children require repeat ventilation tube insertion (VTI) for otitis media. Disease recurrence is associated with persistent middle ear bacterial biofilms. With demonstration that Dornase alfa (a DNase) disrupts middle ear effusion biofilms ex vivo, we identified potential for this as an anti-biofilm therapy to prevent repeat VTI. First, safety and tolerability needed to be measured.
In Australian remote communities, First Nations children with otitis media (OM)-related hearing loss are disproportionately at risk of developmental delay and poor school performance, compared to those with normal hearing. Our objective was to compare OM-related hearing loss in children randomised to one of 2 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) formulations.